So this is a compromise between a HV ignitor and a starting probe: There is a starting coil around the arctube, but instead of being feeded directly by the mains voltage (As in penning start HPS lamps), it is feeded by a HV source.

The ignitor cannot send anything to the main electrodes (or else the charge would dissipate in the rest of the circuit and not make any HV pulse at all). Alll the ignitor output is going to the probe

(the way i understand it)

So the ignitor sends a HV pulses to the first electrodes, that transfers to the starting probe, and the starting probe strike the arctube through capacitance?

The ignitor here is a HV ignitor that generates real HV pulses by itself without requiring the ballast

As i see it what happens is this :

The capacitor is charged slowly through high resistance from the mains voltage. As it approach a certain voltage its capacitance suddenly shrink (the capaqcitor here is intentionally made to experience this effect), since hte charge is the same and capacity shrink down, there are 2 option : Either voltage must jump up (since Q = CV), or the excess charge must leave the capacitor and go back into the rest of the circuit

Here is where the starting electrode comes into work. Assume that the capacitor was connected just between 2 main electrodes. The charge from it would quickly go back into the ballast and escape from the lamp circuit, effectively doing nothing

But here the capacitor is connected through high value resistor. The resistor limits the speed at which chage can escape and forces most of the charge to stay in t capacitor, which means tat it must make a jump in voltage. Now since it is not possible to feed this pulse into the main electrode (the charge would then go flow the easy way to the ballast instead of to the arctube), the pulse must be fed to the arctube through its own probe which is not connected to the rest of the circuit, and so is connected to the starting probe which is capacitively coupled to the arctube

The same repeats every hlf cycle untill the arc tube strikes

Based on this picture of Iwasaki HPS retrofit for CWA mercury ballasts , which displayed a suspicious wire around the arctube (In additional to the Ferro-Electric Capacitor itself, and the ressistors), which a member of LG, said me that that wire is a starting probe and is connected to the FEC itself, I can't longer know if the FEC "ignitor" of Iwasaki HPS lamps, is a real HV ignitor, that sends pulses to the arctube, like external ignitors/glow starters/snap (Thermal) starters, or just an improvement of the starting coils of penning start HPS lamps, that allow regular xenon HPS lamps to be ignited directly from the 220-240V mains (In case of a lamp for the european market)/CWA mercury ballast OCV (In case of a lamp for the american/japanese market), without the need to replace the xenon with argon-neon buffer.

Any answers please!

The radio interference likely come from the very fast transients, so high frequency components, what demodulate (and so flip into the AM band) on the rather sensitive, but qay too simple consumer receivers.

The "general coverage" receivers are designed to filter out well all off-band signals (and not only close in the frequency, but mainly the far off-band frequencies) - an ability missing in the cheap consumer grade radio-broadcast equipment. Well, this ability is quite expensive to make, mainly today (it can not be miniaturized).

For the ballast temperature: The vast majority of the heat come from the LED's alone.
And moreover the newly used LED concepts of hogher amount of low power (but still well heatsinked) LED chips compare to the older concept of few high power chips allow te ballast efficiency to be way higher (95% for isolated, 97% for non-isolated topolgy is quite common, while with 3-chip concept does not go above the 80% mark, what mean 4..7xless losses in the new design for the same power), so even when it handle rather high power in a way smaller format and yet remain colder.
So the fact, the ballast is squeezed into tighter space does not mean it would run hotter. I would rather guess the opposite, as the base is the coldest place, the ability to squeeze it there mean it could actually run cooler than the older type. And when it is the modern electrolyte free design, there is virtually nothing to degrade in the ballast, so the lifetime could be really way longer.
But of course, the general reliability would be still a quastion, though not as much related to the ballast size...

Is there an actual glow lamp collection ? I'd really like to se, both a collectoin and sciece/engineering papers for glow lamps !

October 1982 a very important publication was produced in England by a Mr Dolbey Jones called The Glowlamp Collector. I know some of you will remember this newsheet and it had so much valuable info on the history developments of the lamp industry. Some of the subscribers I cannot trace for instance does anyone know of Anton of Belgium Joseph of USA also Carolyn Anne Little of NJ 07852 Fin Stewart was one of the stalwarts. with excellent articles.This publication should be reproduced but I do not know the legal side re copyright. Let me apologies to anyone that I may of offended and If Mr Dolbey Jones sees this could here agree to reproduce parts of these papers as is. his project and a lot is owed to him.

Its a dream so you can't really get anything anyway. What you can take out of a dream to the real world is knowing something, so i'd say the same about eg seeing something in a dream and the dream ends before you could see what ballast was there, lamp etch etc...

But the dreams come more.... I had 2 of them now in a row



I (a sparky, but also a pokemon master dont forget....) was going on some urbex, and met a fella girl (well not really girl, my age) who acquired an old building which used to be an old factory, and intended to make it into a gallery

I came in. The place looked like an old 60's hall, with quite weird proportions - like a cube standing above the earth, all built of very rough surfaced unpainted concrete, about 15x15x15m, one big room. A square spiral of stairs without hand rails stands in the mid of the room (off center though) going from the floor allmost to the ceiling, but ending somewhat below without reaching anything. I realise that if glass floors (lined up with the staircase's landings) and walls would be installed, this would be an awesome gallery

There were plastic meltlights installed through the staircase and in some spots in the top ceiling. They were mostly broken. I wanted to inspect them closer, though i had no ladder that is even close to the height needed to look at them, let alone reach them. But i proceded anyway....

I chose Chandela (for the US translation pokemon folks out there : Chandelure), a pokemon in gen 5 which looks like a light fixture on his own.... I asked him to use Psychic to lift me to the ceiling - i sorta became weightless and could float in any direction by thought, as well as summon tools from the floor 3 floors below me by stretching my hand in their direction. I began disassembling the light fixtures from there in order to make a few in good condition out of the lot and install them only through the staircase, and later we'd order some track lights for the main room (as should be in a gallery...)

The fela walked into the room way down below me and looked at me stunned as if im floating by myself. I came down forwards her while she was running up the staircase, and we met midway through the height of the room

"I see you really like your work"
"I do. But most of all i like being along with this fella of mine" (Chandela shows himself)
"You are one of ours. Come with me"

Next thing i knew, we were going down thestaircase, and it went to a dark underground floor, which apparently used to be a production floor of the factory, but was now empty. There were numerous ex-proof fluorescent fixtures installed there with 4ft lamps

She told me that what he really looks into doing is opening a ghost type pokemon gym, which looks like unuspecting art gallery to visitors which are not Pokemon masters. Not only she found a sparky that would help with the upper floor gallery, but one who is into pokemon too and can build up all the place

I looked at the light fittings and recommended to convert all the ex-proof fittings to BLB lamps and leave only a few of them with normal lamps, so that it will be best for a ghost-type battlefield. I went up to one of the fitings to open and chck it insides (with the help of Chandela). I said that we better start working on this floor first since there allready are lanterns installed so we can open it earlier. We decided that for now we only want to reconnect the power, so i went to the emergency exit and opened the door after which i would reach the main panel. As i opened the door there was bright sunlight and i woke up

There are ZERO degree ballasts when you have these lamps outside.