Is It possible to make a MH bulb work on a HPS ballast?
From what I understand, many European pulse start metal halide lamps were designed to run on high pressure sodium ballasts in the first place, but I understand that a higher voltage ignitor is generally necessary to run them unless the lamps are intended as a direct retrofit lamp such as the Philips CDO ceramic metal halide lamps or Venture’s Whitelux lamps.
Interestingly, I am aware that Venture Lighting manufactured some low wattage high pressure sodium to metal halide retrofit kits that were supplied with both a lamp and an ignitor.
However, I understand that there are some European metal halide lamps that are designed to operate on lower current mercury vapor ballasts in conjunction with an added ignitor. Those lamps include Osram’s HQI N/SI probe start metal halide lamps, Venture’s “EURO” probe start metal halide lamps, some models of Venture’s “Uni-Form” pulse start metal halide lamps, plus GE/Tungsram’s high CRI Kolorarc pulse start metal halide lamps. Those types of metal halide lamps are often overdriven on same wattage high pressure sodium ballasts because standard high pressure sodium lamps usually draw more current than same wattage mercury vapor lamps.
