Absolutely. James has awesome website and his collection would really deserve such a piece of history. How should we push this forward?



Btw, since there was mentioning about group buy, I have been thinking how nice it would be if there was some sort of LG branded "membership lamp". I know the number would ve just few and thys for expensive but the idea itself would be nice.

I would buy one and more then likely never use it, well other then to see if it actually works and then maybe a few hours every couple of years, and as for expensive, if philips was to do this correctly it's an advertising expense for them, they know we all buy lights from them so they could fully expense those additional costs knowing this will ultimately lead to additional sales of there other still in production products.. And in reality it could be something as simple as an inside etch which wouldn't be that expensive or even an external stencil acid washed on the outer tube which could be done on a standard production tube before they are boxed, we are not asking for them to bend a custom arc tube to spell lighting gallery ( but they would be really cool if they could )

@Ash: Comparing the magnetics technology with LPS is like Trabant against RollsRoyce. Mastering the magnetics in a rather short time to a level required to get it survivable is compare to a former SOX factory a piece of cake - you have plenty of product possibilities with the equipment, against just the SOX most of the SOX machinery is specialized for.
Don't forget there should be a reason, why there were just two or three closely cooperating companies world wide over all of the 7 decades we had the SOX technology, who were able to make such type of products. Compare to millions of different scale magnetics makers. Or 100's os semiconductor makers.
To me this means just one thing: The LPS means highly specialized equipment, highly specialized skills, with very limited market opportunities (lighting business i practiclly dead for this, what remains are just specialty products, but there you have to show long log of past experience to get accepted... The number of players would even suggest making LPS (a single trust of just thee) would be way more difficult than making even semiconductors (100's)...

I don't think it's just the specialized production that limited the ability to make SOX lamps, because with enough money it's not hard to poach there main people making the lamps, they will all leave if offered enough cash, and if for example SNAPFAST in China can make them and source the materials, and then there is the infamous spiral LPS lamp as seen on Alibaba,  there is a lot more to this, Philips for the longest time had the patents protecting there product which in turn protected there market and after a few decades of highly protected markets it's very hard to compete, you don't see any company that is a real competition to say Monsanto's Roundup even though the patent expired a few years ago sure there is a few smaller players but commercially every thing is Monsanto, and with the SOX lamp even GE had come up with a process to make sodium resistant glass that didn't violate philips patent and there process was a pretty novel solution but they then moved to HPS because they stood to make more money from HPS as they had there patents all ready in place, honestly I think 1990 was the last time any real money was put into R&D of a LPS lamp and as the patents expired allowing other companies to clone the lamp the markets were changing to higher CRI lamps and now LED's so no one was willing to invest and they just let philips carry on knowing this sad day will happen eventually as the lighting market changes...

So while I think the cloning or production of a reliable SOX lamp is possible I can't say it would be practical, but I'm open to ideas...

And as for the the need to have specially trained people, I'm sure the day the factory closes down there will be a few highly trained people available to hire that are already living in the area and would more then likely appreciate being hired in an industry that would appreciate there skill levels ...    

I agree it would be fantastic. Not sure how expensive it would come. I would doubt that even if we sum up all the lamps we LG members ever buy in new it would still be as nonexistant as fart in Sahara if compared to overal sale. Still, if we had a good contact for the company it might happen. that would be reallt spectaculart thing to have.

I agree it would be fantastic. Not sure how expensive it would come. I would doubt that even if we sum up all the lamps we LG members ever buy in new it would still be as nonexistant as fart in Sahara if compared to overal sale. Still, if we had a good contact for the company it might happen. that would be reallt spectaculart thing to have.

Ash, you really have no idea on how to manufacture SOX lamps. It is far from "push a button and the product comes out the conveyor belt". The modern SOX lamps require special tools, machinery and decades of knowledge.

Ash, you really have no idea on how to manufacture SOX lamps. It is far from "push a button and the product comes out the conveyor belt". The modern SOX lamps require special tools, machinery and decades of knowledge. The evolution of the SOX lamp shows this since the early sodium lamps. While it is a cool idea in theory, it is simply impossible for the vast majority of us. Reasons are financially since some of us may be raising a family and looking to put food on the table for our kids, we are spread out over a massive area and other factors. Also if a large chunk of us split the payment for machinery then I can see disagreements over who owns what part of the production line.

Put simply it is expensive and out of reach of us. While it is a shame that SOX lamps are going to be discontinued and I will miss them, especially the way they look warming up against the sunset they will indeed live on in the lives of us enthusiasts and collectors. I'm going to attempt to stock up while I can since the roads around my area is still mainly SOX lit at time of writing.

Ash, you really have no idea on how to manufacture SOX lamps. It is far from "push a button and the product comes out the conveyor belt". The modern SOX lamps require special tools, machinery and decades of knowledge. The evolution of the SOX lamp shows this since the early sodium lamps. While it is a cool idea in theory, it is simply impossible for the vast majority of us. Reasons are financially since some of us may be raising a family and looking to put food on the table for our kids, we are spread out over a massive area and other factors. Also if a large chunk of us split the payment for machinery then I can see disagreements over who owns what part of the production line.

Put simply it is expensive and out of reach of us. While it is a shame that SOX lamps are going to be discontinued and I will miss them, especially the way they look warming up against the sunset they will indeed live on in the lives of us enthusiasts and collectors. I'm going to attempt to stock up while I can since the roads around my area is still mainly SOX lit at time of writing.

When they close the factory, I've got a good feeling there will be some highly experienced people looking to put those specialized skills to work, I doubt philips will be paying them some type of retainer to not apply those skills, at most there is something in there contract about non-competitive activities, but even contractual non-competitive clauses can be gotten around especially since philips is not producing those lamps anymore they will have a very hard time showing it impacted them in any financial way or reduced there sales and since they have been ignoring there patent renewal notices they have basically all expired so they can't apply for protections there either..

If we imagine there would be enought interested people with enought money the only reasonable way to do this would be to set up a joint-stock company or something like that, where all the interested people woukd be shareholders. That way the company would own eveything.

It would also help to acquire other needed resources (raw materials etc) and even be needed to enable to Philips sell the production equiptments in the first place, as some companies dont like to deal with private persons.

This all would make it even more complicated and big efford if there is not going to be profit from it.

This seems like the most sensible way to do it