At the meeting in June 2025 at Kev's in Cornwall, two different fixtures from the GDR were also shown.

I would like to present one of them in more detail here.
It is the smallest fixture ever built in the GDR for mercury vapour lamps.

This fixture was put into production around the beginning of the seventies. It is a housing made of cast aluminium with a small steel cover plate for the ballast compartment.
The fixing spigot for mounting on the pole bracket is a separate component made of cast aluminium and is mounted on the housing with 3 steel screws. The complete fixture was clamped to the mast bracket with just one screw.

The opinions of lighting technology experts in the GDR on this fixture were unanimous: completely unsuitable in terms of lighting technology.

And the experts were right. The housing in the area of the lamp was only painted with a colour similar to ivory. There was no reflector. So you can already speak of a ‘sparkler’.
This fixture was mainly only used in small villages and in areas where there were no major lighting requirements.

This fixture was manufactured by the company ‘PGH Leuchtenbau Staßfurt’ and has the designation ‘R70.1’. In the first years of production, this fixture was still available with a ballast for 80W and 125W mercury vapour lamps,
which could be optionally reconnected at the terminal. The last models only had a ballast for the 125W mercury vapour lamp. Colloquially, this fixture was called the ‘Latschen’ in the GDR, a German term for an old shoe.

A few pictures of different versions of this lamp supplement the text:





This photo shows two uninstalled fixtures with the older bakelite terminal and the ballast for 80W and 125W mercury vapour lamp,
optionally clampable and the later version only for 125W mercury vapour lamp with the newer form of the terminal.





This photo shows a used fixture in detail with the old bakelite connection terminal and the four connections for the phase (L), tapping for 80W, tapping for 125W and the protective conductor (PE).
You can also see the problem with the corrosion of the aluminium.





This photo shows two used fixtures side by side, both fitted with a 125W mercury vapour lamp.




It can be added to this photo that the connections are somewhat special in terms of electrical engineering.

In the GDR, so-called ‘zeroing’ was permitted until the ‘reunification’ in 1989. In concrete terms, this means that the phase goes via the black cable and the neutral conductor and the protective conductor have a common cable (PE).
In this case, the connecting cable also has only two cores: black (L) and green-yellow (PE).

In the FRG, ‘zeroing’ had already been prohibited for new installations since 1973.

Specialty stores here are still coasting on the old stock incandescents. You can literally walk to the specialty stores in Amsterdam or Den Haag and walk out with an entire backpack full of standard incandescents.
But clearly, people aren't really doing that a whole lot becuase the stocks still haven't depleted and we're more than 10 years after the ban of import and production of incandescents in the netherlands.

Alternatively, all thrift shops have bins full of both new and used lamps of all types. I sometimes see people dig up incandescents. Apparently those people really want them, but also they will just keep buying them there for €0,50 to €1 for as long as people keep bringing in NOS incandescents to the thrift shop. As for their motives - i have no clue if they really specifically look for incandescent light, or that they are completely ignorant about the differences and just buy them out of habit, or whether they need them for dim bulb limiters like i do.

It will take another decade or so (hell, maybe even more) to actually deplete existing stock, so only then super expensive new production won't face the competition from cheap, sunk cost/written off old stock.

Any peron caring about light quality today will likely sooner buy a 94 CRI led (the Ledvance thing i have is definitely good) than deal with the fact that modern fixtures are usually not designed for more than 25w of thermal energy, conciously buy older fixtures that still have heat resistant sockets etc.

Maybe in 50 years time, when stocks have properly dropped to the level of individual NOS lamps' prices rising to 50 euro a piece, that it will be possible to restart a small scale production system, like they're currently doing with bright emitter vacuum tubes: https://brimaruk.com/product/ediswan-type-r/ or like Dalimar is doing with brand new Nixie tubes.
But it will be a considerable amount of manual labor, and you'll be looking at cost closer to 50 euro than 5 euro per lamp.

Getting an automated production line up and running will be at least 2 million euro just to fix everything in the production line (just getting 'stiff' mechanisms, iffy limit switches and old computer control systems working again) and re-line the glass furnaces and stuff. Double or triple that if you have to strip out the tons of asbestos from legacy production facilities. Philips' glass furnaces are still around and have not been demolished yet. It wouldn't surprise me if that's becasue the furnaces are absolutely filled with asbestos and they're hoping the company's remains switch owners often enough for the national government to lose track and the cost for cleaning up the mess just goes to the tax payer...

More likely is that this will just happen in China, though even China doesn't seem to be bothered with producing incandescent lamps anymore. India maybe?

Interesting observation about the slow depletion of existing stocks. I actually think it will take longer, if vacuum tubes (valves) are any indicator. I built an amp that required a pair of tubes that were only produced for a short time in the 1940s, and only used in a handful of products. I expected finding some would be difficult and expensive, but to my surprise a quick eBay search yielded two NOS ones for $5 each. I suspect the same will apply to incandescents as, like tubes, hundreds of millions were made and will continue to be unearthed for decades to come. Nonetheless, that hasn't stopped the reissue of the popular types, which are still in demand and profitable to make.

I've got no idea what I am, my (now dead) grandpa came from Yugoslavia, specifically the Croatia area, he came to Australia in the 60s. My gran is 2nd or third gen Australia (her family is from Scandinavia). My other side of the family is probably English but have been in Australia for a few generations.

Has anyone ever done a DNA test for ancestry.com or 23andme, etc.? Here are my results from Ancestry.com. I have all European ancestors. I’m heavily Scottish and German.

My family came to the USA between the 1750s and 1800s. The Scottish on my dad’s side came in through Philadelphia and migrated south to West Virginia and the Carolinas. The German on my mom’s side came in through New Orleans and went up the Mississippi River to settle in St. Louis.

Hi Vince!
Sure sounds a lot like me! I just assumed it was because I was an only child and never really learned how to behave like other kids.
My job is repairing antique clocks. For me, they're pretty easy to problem solve because I can create a mental image of all the gears and what they do.

Only child? Really? So am I!    I didn't fit in but I don't believe not having siblings was a factor. My parents keep telling me I had all the characteristics of a kid with high or even very high IQ, but I don't really believe it TBH... 

Oh and also an avid fan of repairing stuff. Lately it's my backup pallet truck at work that keeps throwing the same error code(s), I'm tempted to take a look and see if I could fix it myself. 

@Silverliner: It helps immensely to know what quantities numbers represent! But that's kind of a separate problem from actual number processing. Even in the context of electricity, I find the math behind it quite interesting! But I MUST double-check everything, and make reverse calculations to see if my results make sense (unless it's obvious it does). And not like just every once in a while as a sanity check. It's EACH.AND.EVERY.TIME. Just like any learning disability, it doesn't ruin one's entire life, there are ways to manage the condition. But it would be naive to think it doesn't lead to more closed doors than open doors in life.

Ok, “financial death sentence” is a bit of an overstatement. I am not super duper good at math, but for what I want to do I am going to have to learn a bunch of it. The thing is, I can’t see myself in a situation where I would need to know math in the modern world, there are calculators, and now with AI you really don’t need to be held back by a lack of math understanding anymore. I don’t know if that is a good thing or not, but just saying.

[...]

I can tell you from experience that a calculator won't save you if the brain doesn't cooperate! It's entirely unrelated to interest or efforts (though dyscalculia can absolutely fuel math aversion!). Errors like swapping digits in a number are completely out of one's control, it happens because of underdeveloped neural pathways in the region that processes numbers. They're not handled by the brain the way it should. In the most severe cases people can't even tell if 3 is bigger than 2! Thankfully I'm not that far gone! But it's still enough of a hindrance that higher education would be a risky move. I really don't see myself doing say engineering because of that.

Kind of. I live in perpetual summer, our weather is basically "summer - summer pro plus", that's it. So I don't know if I'd dislike cold or winter more.
I mean it's almost July and it's still 37C close to dusk. Nights are hot too, I live in an area with what I call the pressure cooker weather, it's sort of the bottom of a wide valley surrounded by rainforest hills, so heat has nowhere to go, there's no wind so it simply recirculates like in a pressure cooker, nights below 30C are rare so it's technically always hot and ~90% humidity, looks like steam during the day but it's "clouds" forming at surface level, the city is mostly covered in smog and industrial chemicals, it smells terrible and is harmful, so much it burns your throat or lungs if you inhale too much, wearing a simple face mask helps a bit but it can't filter the stench... if I had to describe I'd say it's a mixture of burnt diesel, pure bleach and the smell angle grinder discs leave behind when you cut through metal pipes. The only animals living in the city are rats, everything else just died or left, even pigeons, they can only be seen downtown a bit far from the industrial areas.


I got used to it, not that I can do something about it, like, I can't cool the planet. No AC either, it's insanely expensive to both get the equipment and run it, not like in the US that houses already come with central HVAC by default.

We got mesh screens on all windows to prevent mosquitoes and other bugs from entering, they replace the standard glass panels, and metal roller blinds in case of rain or storms.

It even affects lighting, this happens:
Low quality LEDs in my country run insanely hot, add a 40C ambient temp on top of that and they simply crack in half or melt, seen both, or straight up dim to candle intensity or shut off due to brownouts, our house is almost at the far end of a rural line so we always get hit by brownouts, one of the reasons we still use incandescents, the most used circuits are on relay AVRs but they still dim if the sag is too pronounced, tx can only increase voltage by 20%, it's meant for a 200V low input so it can boost it back to 240, sometimes it drops to ~160, good thing is lamps last for way more than their rated hours. 

We had a Kenmore refrigerator in our old house- it was original to the construction of the house in 1976. The ice machine / water dispenser stopped working around 2006, and was never replaced, so I guess that was always a bit of an annoyance

When we moved, we took it with us and used it as our "spare" fridge in the garage.

Unfortunately, at around 46 year mark (2022), it started cycling on and off constantly and the freezer stopped holding temperature (especially in the summer months- the freeze-thaw cycles were brutal). We wound up getting rid of it through our utilities "appliance buyback" program. I believe we got a $150 rebate on it, even in its nearly-dead state.

We also have a 2006 LG front load washer / dryer combo. We swapped them out last year for a "deluxe tower" LG unit that was mispriced at Lowes (there was a sale going on, and someone f'd up big time- we got a $3K appliance for just under $900). My entire household agrees that a) it doesn't wash as effectively, and b) that we should get around to reinstalling our old units (they currently sit in the garage, unused, but they do work). The washer needs a new fill valve, as the one it has is VERY loud / close to failing. Otherwise, they're both mint.

Apart from that, we have a 2016 Miele Futura Dimension dishwasher that has given us ZERO problems and a 2005 GE Two-Door convection oven. Zero problems whatsoever and a very intuitive menu, but its control panel (plastic) is starting to look worse for wear. I've had to tape a few buttons back on as the plastic is cracking / becoming brittle which is leading to some of tje buttons breaking off with use. Our newest kitchen appliance is our fridge, which is an LG from 2020, which replaced a HORRIBLE Samsung fridge from 2011. No issues with it yet either, cross my fingers it stays that way.

I’m a winter person 🥶, I do like summer but summer my way!, a couple of weeks ago it was hot here, 28 degrees, but it was fully cloud covered as with a strong breeze, that was my perfect summer’s day 🥳
Warm enough to be outside in a T-shirt, a strong refreshing breeze and absolutely no direct sun burning down on you!
If every summer could be like this each day I’d be happy!
But I think the air is just fresher and healthier in winter, and darker nights means more lights 👍

Summer is most certainly my least favorite season. I don’t do any sports, and I hate literally anything at all that makes me sweat, even just a little bit.

@Maxim
Holy crud it is hot out now. And my school is having graduation this week, outside of course… 

Thats super cool! I hear things are wEiRd over there, I have seen many pictures on here of strange Japanese lighting things. Take some pictures for us!