I am not saying this is the case for anyone here but brains can convince themselves of very crazy nonsensical things. Having special interests is definitely a sign, and I'd venture to say that many people here have a special interest (lighting that is). Of course all the social stuff as well but not everyone here has those.

So yeah I do agree that probably 50% or more here are neurodivergent (a wild guess), but maybe many people think they are neurotypical despite signs pointing otherwise. I've certainly convinced myself of much more significant things with overwhelming opposing evidence. I would argue that whether or not you are under the technical category of neurodivergence is decreasingly important after you leave school, especially if it is support level 1. I also hear it's harder to diagnose in adults though I don't know if that's true or not.

I have not had a similar experience as I was diagnosed before I can even remember, so the question in my mind was never there. I think the diagnosis benefitted me, though opinions seem to vary as to whether a diagnosis is actually helpful or not.

Where I'm at (Metropolitan Detroit area of the United States), before the advent of LED everything, a lot of high bays had coated MH lamps, usually the ones with clear refractors rather than reflectors. It was a very common sight at various stores, warehouses, and gymnasiums. Another application where I saw a lot was medium base MH floods, usually for architectural lighting or flag poles, and the occasional FCO wallpack. Attached is a photo from the Google page of a now defunct thrift store that was lit by Coated MH lamps.

I think that a very very significantly higher number of people here are neurodivergent (specifically on the autism spectrum) than on, for instance, gamer, sports car, travel, music, movie and gardening forums and discord groups. Similar with train and other public transport enthousiasts.

I have not been diagnosed but i am very likely to also be on the autism spectrum.

I may be a touch of this

Probably comes with my mild autism along with I must confess with bit of anger reaction dealing with my method versus other peoples' method

It is a lifelong dealing with my issues since childhood years.

It runs in my family on both sides, plus my therapist suspects also. And for years I was overthinking social skills and forced myself to be out there because of a fear of being judged for being different. Maybe that’s why I felt alone and I should truly do what I am good at and enjoy too. Thoughts? Any of you had similar experiences?

Those small wattage Osram HQI-E in fact are even easier to find coated than clear. Osram also did 400W coated elliptical HQI-E. Also BLV's elliptical lamps in 70-150W were also available coated. I am talking about European market, though.

Scandium can't be used in CMH lamps because scandium is very corrosive to the ceramic, compared to quartz.

Regarding reflecting coatings and vacuum-nitrogen fills.

Every arctube has its optimum design temperature inter-related to working pressure. This depends on the projected lifetime and also on getting optimal efficiency, also a color balance needed.

Usually, all white lamps have these coatings, with a notable exception of late generation of 400W Philips HPI-T lamps. I can bet HPI-T lamps have smallish highly loaded arctubes which can easily reach the temperature required without extra measures, and do not suffer much from cold spots at the ends of arctubes. Also, tri-band fill used does not call for high vapor density, risking to lose some efficiency by turning narrowband emission into wideband and spilling energy into IR/UV.

Colored MH lamps with Ga or In especially usually skip reflective coatings, as their arctubes need to run relatively cool, at low metal halide vapor density, else they turn their desired narrowband emission into inefficient cold white color.

Also vacuum or nitrogen is chosen depending on the desired cooling of the arctube. Older larger arctubes with lower loading called for a hard vacuum to be kept hot enough. Newer smaller/shorter arctubes may need nitrogen for extra heat dissipation. Also, different fills have different optimal temperatures. So lamps with NaSc or tri-band chemistries may be nitrogen filled, and rare earth ones need to run hotter  and may be hard vacuum.

Also, for CWA circuit, asymmetrical discharge between probe and nearby electrode may charge CWA capacitor in an undesirable way, lowering OCV peak when nearby electrode is a cathode and far electrode is an anode. Adding extra diode can counteract this.

 

Regarding a zener and voltage increase, I have no info on this design. May be a patent dig will surface some info. Sure, you can't much increase OCV with just diodes/resistors, but there may be an old trick applicable for CWA circuits only. Adding some kind of diode across the lamp will cause half-wave rectification and charge CWA circuit's output capacitor. That way, lamp voltage will become asymmetrical, with some boost applied every half period.