Good day brother and sisters, I was wondering if you can start the lamp without SX73, SX75 or SX76? Parts are getting scanty and costly nowadays and I was looking for the alternatives way to ignite the lamp without these specific parts designed for it. Leak gears that doesn't required the ignitor also going extinct but I have plenty of socks coming my way so I wondering if there is any other way that can start the lamp reliably, without affecting the lamp service life

There is not that much the lamp need (500..800V peak for initoal ionization, then ability to feed 200..300V drop on cold cathode discharge by some 100mA or so for a second or two and then the final rated arc voltage at the rated current), but also there is nothing that may allow you to get away from those steps.

My guess the ignitor less autoleak ballasts would be the rarest way, as those were rather inefficient, so in the last few decades got replaced by the "choke plus ignitor" combinations. But the ignitors there, like other electronic, became the weak point (sensitive to mishandling, moisture,...) so often became inoperative (often by rain damage after the lantern was removed from the service and then treated as a garbage just to recycle)

So one option would be to learn to fix or even make the ignitors (salvage a few, learn what is inside,...).
Other option is to just design an electronic ballasts for them - the SOX chsracteristics sits pretty well with the resonant start HFAC ballasts. That may mean to modify existing fluorescent ballasts to match the desired SOX. A design based on chips like irs2153 would be quite "timeless" - as there is no part thst would have its use only in ballasts and not in the tons of other power conversion circuits.

There is not that much the lamp need (500..800V peak for initoal ionization, then ability to feed 200..300V drop on cold cathode discharge by some 100mA or so for a second or two and then the final rated arc voltage at the rated current), but also there is nothing that may allow you to get away from those steps.

My guess the ignitor less autoleak ballasts would be the rarest way, as those were rather inefficient, so in the last few decades got replaced by the "choke plus ignitor" combinations. But the ignitors there, like other electronic, became the weak point (sensitive to mishandling, moisture,...) so often became inoperative (often by rain damage after the lantern was removed from the service and then treated as a garbage just to recycle)

So one option would be to learn to fix or even make the ignitors (salvage a few, learn what is inside,...).
Other option is to just design an electronic ballasts for them - the SOX chsracteristics sits pretty well with the resonant start HFAC ballasts. That may mean to modify existing fluorescent ballasts to match the desired SOX. A design based on chips like irs2153 would be quite "timeless" - as there is no part thst would have its use only in ballasts and not in the tons of other power conversion circuits.

What could happen if I hook up the ignitor used in HPS to SOX? Like the superimposed ignitor? Will it goes

They are the easier to find, and dirt cheap too, like the Philips SI51

It won't start, as the HPS ignitor is not able to deliver the 100-ish mA current into the higher voltage glow discharge to heat up the electrodes (HPS get the extra margin by being cold, so dropping very little voltage on the anode column; low pressure lamps have already full voltage drop there even when still cold, so need higher voltage supply still feeding enough current to warm up the electrodes).
Same problem would be with starting fluorescents with cold electrodes. But there the ballast heat up the electrodes (either by extra wi ding in RS, or by the starter in preheat), so they ignite already without that extra cold cathode voltage drop. But there is no provision to preheat electrodes on SOX, only on the linear ones.

 Unfortunately not with the BLX 90 L32!, I’ve tried!, even if you light the lamp with the proper ignitor of the BLX 90, then take the ignitor out of circuit once the lamp is running, you will find the lamp will immediately extinguish!
I’m guessing the ignitor keeps drip feeding the discharge with enough voltage until it’s stabilised enough to run on its own?
I would try experimenting with a form of flyback start to try and strike the discharge  , but like I say, I didn’t successfully keep the lamp running on the BLX 90 without it’s ignitor?

Unfortunately not with the BLX 90 L32!, I’ve tried!, even if you light the lamp with the proper ignitor of the BLX 90, then take the ignitor out of circuit once the lamp is running, you will find the lamp will immediately extinguish!
I’m guessing the ignitor keeps drip feeding the discharge with enough voltage until it’s stabilised enough to run on its own?
I would try experimenting with a form of flyback start to try and strike the discharge  , but like I say, I didn’t successfully keep the lamp running on the BLX 90 without it’s ignitor?

I think I witness the drip feeding on older fluorescent lamp glow starter, the metal ones with a hole on the top of the cap from the 80s that glow bright red when you turn on the switch, even when the fluorescent lamp is lit you will occasionally see some faint glow on the starter, this explains why the fluorescent lamp will never stay lit once the starter is removed.

I think I witness the drip feeding on older fluorescent lamp glow starter, the metal ones with a hole on the top of the cap from the 80s that glow bright red when you turn on the switch, even when the fluorescent lamp is lit you will occasionally see some faint glow on the starter, this explains why the fluorescent lamp will never stay lit once the starter is removed.

I think that is something else. With fluorescents, once the lamp lights, the starter has to stop interfering at all. But there may have been some sort of lamp cutout contact, shutting down the power once some of the components are removed from their sockets.

With the BLX90 it is possible the lamp relies on the ignitor to reignite after each current zero cross (all discharges extinguish when the current polarity changes once the current drops to zero and have to reignite afterwards, but with most it happens without any external aid), mainly till the lamp completely stabilizes (booth temperature, as well as gas composition snd component distribution within the arctube).

Unfortunately not with the BLX 90 L32!, I’ve tried!, even if you light the lamp with the proper ignitor of the BLX 90, then take the ignitor out of circuit once the lamp is running, you will find the lamp will immediately extinguish!
I’m guessing the ignitor keeps drip feeding the discharge with enough voltage until it’s stabilised enough to run on its own?
I would try experimenting with a form of flyback start to try and strike the discharge  , but like I say, I didn’t successfully keep the lamp running on the BLX 90 without it’s ignitor?

With the BLX90 it is possible the lamp relies on the ignitor to reignite after each current zero cross (all discharges extinguish when the current polarity changes once the current drops to zero and have to reignite afterwards, but with most it happens without any external aid), mainly till the lamp completely stabilizes (booth temperature, as well as gas composition snd component distribution within the arctube).

I did tried a little bit lol but so far no luck, including multiple fluorescent starters, all it does was flicker, I tried various method to see if I could start it, one of the silly method including adding two wire before the lamp and rub it against a piece of metal surface to short circuit it, the SOX do react to it but the arc never established, the metal surface was large enough so I can rub the wire for as long as 5 seconds but as soon as I stopped, the lamp instantly extinguished. I noticed that different lamp does different things, the GEC 90W seems like easier to start as both cathodes were striking and the electric arc were established across the tube, but for the Philips only one end was striking and the arc only goes 40% across the tube?

Leak gears that doesn't required the ignitor also going extinct but I have plenty of socks coming my way

Wait until Mad Max and Tim see this 

@ Medved:

We have experimented with electronic gear that said it was designed for a 35W SOX vs the magnetic ballast we already used, and found the the electronic gear under-drives it compared to the magnetic ballast. 

We ran two identical lamps, both brand new and made at the same factory at the same time, the only variable was the ballasts. We ran both lamps at the same time, one on each ballast, and then swapped them around. With both lamps, the electronic ballast was slower than the magnetic one to run the lamp up, and clearly under-drove it; both halves of the arc tube could be clearly seen with the naked eye, whereas with the magnetic ballast, the lamp was much brighter and this was much more difficult

Interestingly, as an aside, the electronic ballast would not run a 26W SOX-E lamp at all 

@Mandolin Girl:
Then your ballast did not deliver adequate power. Could be, it was operating at the maximum input voltage, while the mains voltage compensation (normally designed to suppress the inherent power dependency on the mains voltage) was reducing the power too much.

And the fact your SOXE lamp did not work on electronic ballast only means the ballast was just inadequate for the lamp, or was faulty. Technically there is no reason why an electronic ballast with proper parameters (sufficient ignition voltage, suffifient glow mode power and exact running current and featuring reliable missing lamp protection) would not work.
As I write this, it remind me to the possibility of the protection being triggered (while you were fiddling with the lamp?) and so the ballast needed some resting off time to reset.

@Waterbug:
With fluorescent starters there is no chance for SOX. The starter/ignitor needs to warm up the electrodes for the lamp to work. With fluorescent (and maybe linear LPS) a starter in a preheat circuit could do it, but with SOX the only way is to be able to support the higher voltage drop cold cathode (aka glow) discharge. For that purpose, the dedicated LPS ignitors generate few 100's V extra HF voltage with capability to feed some 100mA with that. But nor the fluorescent starter, nor any of HPS or MH ignitors do that. Maximum you get is the initial gas breakdown, but there it ends.

Our mains voltage is around 245V, so that wasn't a factor, it is possible that the unit is in some way faulty. 

But we're going to stick to using good old magnetic lumps as we have them for every single rating, as well as for the SOX-E lampses. 

@Medved - I think you need a spelling checker 

@Medved - I think you need a spelling checker 

  That is mess, tried to fix it.
Sorry for that and thanks for notifying me.
It seems the spell check in the Mozilla I relied on somehow turned off and stopped highlighting anything. Because I use tablet, I'm making frequent typos... Have to look at the setting... 
<missing some "highly embarassed" smiley  >

That is mess, tried to fix it.
Sorry for that and thanks for notifying me.
It seems the spell check in the Mozilla I relied on somehow turned off and stopped highlighting anything. Because I use tablet, I'm making frequent typos... Have to look at the setting... 
<missing some "highly embarassed" smiley  >

Nothing to embarrassed about, electrical stuff are the things you are truly brilliant at, you probably can fix a very complicated electrical system fault inside a commercial building than I could breathe. I suggest you try the browser extension named grammarly, it automatically highlights the typos and you can move the cursor to the highlighted texts as a small windows will pop up then you can make correction with a single click. Good stuff and I found it less intrusive than other auto-correct extensions.