Check ebay regularly, and also the web finds board here on LG. Low wattage MV appears from time to time for very good prices, most of mine have been from ebay.

If you live in a 230v country, one option you have is to import a 12v pure sine wave inverter that does 120v and run it off either a deep cycle battery or a strong 12v power supply and you'll be able to run the North American lamps and gear which might be more common to find online.

Rommie does this I believe. This works best if you intend to have your lamp set up as a demonstration and of course only attempt if you can do so safely.

For 40/50 watt mv, a 39w magnetic mh ballast works a treat with ignitor removed.

pure guess but to sound like - related to one of the other companies

he name is derived from osmium and Wolfram (German for tungsten, also used in English). Both elements were commonly used for lighting filaments at the time the company was founded.

per Wikipedia

for me it is less of a "country" and more of certain items from countries / regions
like eastern European lanterns and LOW wattage mercury from Japan

I would assume heat as well. Incandescent lamps never had a problem in enclosed fixtures since they are the ones that create heat lol. CFLs and LEDs usually have those warnings on the packages because they have electronics in them that will fail faster due to more more heat build up depending on the orientation of the lamp and what type of light it's used in.

I’ve noticed lots of LED light bulbs, both snow cone plastic type and glass filament type have notice on box “not for use in totally enclosed fixtures.”

I assume it due to overheating, but I’m surprised how many light bulbs have this note on them.

I would assume people pay no attention to or ignore the note, and install these bulbs in enclosed fixtures.

My dad probably does too, since he uses the Sylvania snow cone bulbs in our fixtures, which are mostly enclosed, with the exception of a few table lamps. I notice those light bulbs last a year or so in regular usage.

Very common for me. The sad thing is half of it is possible. I get dreams of finding lamps that are new to me but are very common elsewhere around the world (for instance, any 5000k, 4000k or 3500k lamp).


Also, MVs are rare (even more rarer are fixturs); I got a dream about getting lots of low wattage ones, small eggs!

Has anyone else had dreams where they were finding cases of rare bulbs and such from places like restore?

The dreams that seem so real only for the disappointment of waking up and realizing it's not real and you did not infact score huge on a case of westie F15 BLBs or dozens of colored fluorescent tubes or a case of 6 assorted 100w MV coated with colored phosphor that looks like a box of easter eggs.

Does this happen to anyone else? The examples I listed were of my dream lastnight lol

Of course for me its Greece since I live there, and its easier for me to find Greek made bulbs, ballasts and fixtures that can't be found easily outside of Greece. (Except for the widespread Greek-made brass bulkheads that can be found anywhere).

I've noticed than many lighting related companies end with "ram",
For example: Osram, Tungsram, Volfram, Luxram.
Is it only because of the 2nd name of the tungsten element (wolfram) or is there another reason?

Finding Sylvania Lumalux BT lamps is always a plus!