Maxim
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Outsourcing domestic production turned LEDs purple
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It's very much dying, just as it is here and in Europe. Panasonic and Toshiba appear to be the only real manufacturers still making fluorescents, and they are the only makes available in stores. All new LED products are made in China, and imported into Japan.
I spoke to some locals about it, and they described, with great pain, the slow demise of HID, incandescent, and fluorescent, and how that forced many Japanese lighting plants to scale down or completely close.
Basically, the decline in lighting is a global problem, not one that is U.S. or Europe-specific.
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Sometimes it just takes time and concerted effort to learn something new. Don't give up before you get there.
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joseph_125
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Shame to see that happen to the domestic Japanese lamp manufacturers. Panasonic and Toshiba are both pretty big conglomerates in Japan so I could see them running lamp plants in Japan for a bit longer than smaller manufacturers.
The same thing happened with Canadian production of incandescent, fluorescent, and HID lamps but due to the proximity the US, production first consolidated to larger plants in the US/Mexico and then away from North America entirely. I believe the last Canadian lamp plant was probably Sylvania's Drummondville, QC plant which lasted until 2018.
There are some Canadian produced LED luminaires such as NXTs, but very few and I'd imagine the LED arrays and drivers are all imported. It is possible to build and assemble the PCBs for the LED arrays and drivers locally but again costs have driven many to import those assemblies.
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LightsoftheWest
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SRP for life.
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@joseph_125 - The same can be said for American LED luminaires. There are numerous luminaire manufacturers, big and small, that build their luminaires in the USA. But like you said, I'm guessing that most of them source their LED modules from elsewhere. However, there's one company that I know of, Linmore LED Labs out of California, that does build their fixtures, modules, and drivers in-house.
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LG's #1 North American light fixture identifier
**If anyone wants to learn more about any company or product you've never heard of before, do please leave a comment saying so on one of my gallery pictures or by PM, and I'd be happy to give a thorough explanation.**
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esaym
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Sad. I moved into a brand new house 6+ years ago. Went down the rabbit hole of getting all modern LED lighting. But recently I've been getting bored with the lights. Been changing out random stuff to fluorescent. Guess I better stock up...
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dor123
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Other loves are printers/scanners/copiers, A/Cs
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I didn't know that Japan also doing this. I thought only countries outside the Far East doing this.
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I"m don't speak English well, and rely on online translating to write in this site. Please forgive me if my choice of my words looks like offensive, while that isn't my intention.
I only working with the international date format (dd.mm.yyyy).
I lives in Israel, which is a 220-240V, 50hz country.
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dchen4
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I believe NEC (now spun off as Hotalux) still make some lamps locally, and some are outsourced to China. Either ways all fluorescent tube productions are going to stop on 31 December 2027 because of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, so even if the corps want to keep the lamp plants running for a bit longer they legally can not. However Iwasaki already stopped their HID production lines at the beginning of this year, HID is in a much tougher situation than fluorescent because many Japanese households used circlines and linear lamps .
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230v Nominal 240v Actual 50Hz
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AngryHorse
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Rich, Rollercoaster junkie!
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Although not directly connected, I found a very interesting YouTube channel last night called ‘Tokyo Ninja Walk’, the channel owner walks around Japan (mostly in the early evening), or through rain and thunder storms and you see an hour’s worth of very interesting Japanese street lighting, from what I can tell in the video there’s still plenty of good working order fluorescent and mercury lamps along Japan's back streets! A nice touch that the Japanese do also is have 2700K spot lamps below trees and bushes, making the streets look cozy at night 😎
Although there seems to be very few HPS lights, there’s a lot of yellows and greens among them, and lots of fancy post tops in true Japanese style 😎
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Welcom to OBLIVION ! B+M INTAMIN Gerstlauer GCI Longest serving LED at home: 59,462 hrs @ 7/4/25
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tigerelectronics
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Long live fluorescent!
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A global shortage of lamps is coming it seems  I’m really saddened by the 2027 complete mercury resource usage ban, that’s really upsetting. I’m stocking up before it’s too late. And I try to buy only high quality fluorescent tubes that will last a really long time in use. We will have to rely on each other as lighting enthusiasts when it comes to tubes and hid lamps in the future. The more we can stock up the better!
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Fluorescent tube hoarder 
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veso266
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Why is everyone so sick of mercury it seams, they want to ban it and everything that uses it (why don't they just mandate some label that says use resposibly, don't drink or inhale if lamp breaks) I bet there are other "dangerous" materials too that noone bans
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Roi_hartmann
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Because no matter what stickers and labels you put some of it still tend to end up into environment and into the foodchain due to wrong disposal.
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Aamulla aurinko, illalla AIRAM
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Al_M
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GEC Z9464 90w SOX/LPS
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Why is everyone so sick of mercury it seams, they want to ban it and everything that uses it (why don't they just mandate some label that says use resposibly, don't drink or inhale if lamp breaks) I bet there are other "dangerous" materials too that noone bans
Because it's highly toxic to the environment when not disposed of properly, as most lamps containing mercury aren't.
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WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA
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HID, LPS, and preheat fluorescents forever!!!!!!
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When I personally have done my research into Japan’s lamps and lighting equipment, reading the characters “生産終了” really make me feel sad as I have been seeing traditional Japanese lighting face rapid extinction in recent years as they translate to “end of production” or “discontinued”.
It’s especially heartbreaking since Japan seems to have many lighting products that are unique to the country and not found anywhere else in the world including the wide selection of HID retrofit lamps designed for mercury vapor ballasts.
I also feel especially sad since Japan seems to be among the last holdout of 4 foot halophosphate fluorescent tubes in the developed world. All we can do is to save and document as much as we can even if it means spending large sums of money to get lamps and lighting equipment shipped overseas.
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« Last Edit: August 06, 2025, 04:19:32 PM by WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA »
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Desire to collect various light bulbs (especially HID), control gear, and fixtures from around the world.
DISCLAIMER: THE EXPERIMENTS THAT I CONDUCT INVOLVING UNUSUAL LAMP/BALLAST COMBINATIONS SHOULD NOT BE ATTEMPTED UNLESS YOU HAVE THE PROPER KNOWLEDGE. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY INJURIES.
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tigerelectronics
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Long live fluorescent!
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Indeed. They have a lot of really special and very interesting HID and fluorescents. I’m a huge fan of Japanese fluorescents with halophosphate. New production halophosphate  I’d love to get my hands on some! And yeah. We should do our best to stock up on, and document as many as possible. I’m in.  I’ve stocked up on enough European fluorescents now, so I’m ready to start purchasing and importing Japanese
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Fluorescent tube hoarder 
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WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA
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HID, LPS, and preheat fluorescents forever!!!!!!
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I think the circline fluorescent pendant light fixtures are worth importing as they look so stylish in homes. Buyee and Jauce are good websites that can help assist with importing lamps and fixtures to your country.
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Desire to collect various light bulbs (especially HID), control gear, and fixtures from around the world.
DISCLAIMER: THE EXPERIMENTS THAT I CONDUCT INVOLVING UNUSUAL LAMP/BALLAST COMBINATIONS SHOULD NOT BE ATTEMPTED UNLESS YOU HAVE THE PROPER KNOWLEDGE. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY INJURIES.
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