Hi guys,

I am going to visit New York City the first week of september and i wanted to bring back in France with me some 35w HPS bulb and maybe ballast and ignitor because we don't have these here (as far as i have seen) and it can be cool for my collection.

Do you know if i can find them in store in NYC or Jersey City (NJ) or if some of you sell me some ?

Thanks you !

Probably could look online for an electrical store in NYC. They probably have at least the bulb.  Getting a ballast and igniter might be a bit more difficult, especially if you want a 240 volt type.

This will probably be very difficult assuming you are looking for the European style 35W HPS. In the USA we just have the North American 55V 35W HPS lamps, which are incompatible and I would doubt 50Hz ballasts for them even exist.

As a good number of the North American 35W S76 high pressure sodium ballasts are 120V 60Hz choke ballasts, you might be able to get by with running them on a variac set to somewhere between 100-110V if you want to operate them on your local 50Hz grid as running them on 120V 50Hz would cause the ballasts to be somewhat overdriven and the decreased input voltage helps to compensate for this problem since when the input voltage is lowered on choke ballasts, the lamp current generally decreases with it. (I have tested North American low wattage high pressure sodium lamps on 100V fluorescent choke ballasts meant for the Japanese market and they work decently well on the 100V supply voltage).

A second option is to look for a dedicated 120V 60Hz pure sine wave power inverter for the North American market as well and use the inverter to power your lighting circuit. Just make sure that the inverter wattage is much higher than the ballast circuit wattage such as 150W to account for the high startup current of most choke ballasted HID lighting circuits.

A third option that I am also aware of is to use dedicated electronic ballasts designed for the highly obscure Tungsram TCE 35 high pressure sodium lamps should also work well for powering North American 35W S76 high pressure sodium lamps as well as I have read that Tungsram TCE 35 high pressure sodium lamps have almost identical characteristics to North American 35W S76 high pressure sodium lamps.

A fourth option to possibly consider is to use a pair of 60cm 18W T8 fluorescent choke ballasts in parallel in conjunction with a fluorescent glowbottle starter connected in parallel with the lamp if you want to use ballasts that are easily available in your country. Of course, using multiple choke ballasts can be quite cumbersome.

I think if you do want to bring home a North American 35W S76 high pressure sodium lamp and ballast, here are some links to check out:

Ballast:
https://ebay.io/m/6dJIqK

Lamp:
https://ebay.io/m/anOG2v

Just remember that these components should NEVER be connected to your 220-240V 50Hz mains outlets without the specialized equipment I mentioned above.

If you want to try running North American 35W S76 high pressure sodium lamps in France using my suggestions, do so at your own risk, I am not responsible for any injuries.

If you can use eBay, I am pretty sure that you can have your lighting equipment shipped to the hotel you plan to stay at if they allow guest mail service. I recommend contacting your hotel to see if they allow packages to be shipped to the front desk. So far, I have not yet tried getting items shipped to vacation spots while I am on vacation. However, there might be the possibility of the hotel rejecting oversized items or packages containing materials they deem hazardous.

Hi ! Thanks for your reply !

Inverter can be a good idea !

Also i have a friend of mine that works in a factory where they make power transformer and electric motors. He think that he can probably make a choke ballast for it.

Isn't it too late to buy on ebay for next week ? Do you think any store still sells this kind of bulb ?