whould it be merc vapor/hps/lps/ or metal halide ? do bulbs last longer then there supposed to ? i was servicing a car dealership and my teacher said he swore the merc vapor bulb we pulled out of a fixture was atleast 8 yrs old ? the ballast took a dump but the bulb still lit ? is this normal and im in arzona were the temp of the bulb is just like outside  changed the ballast i poped the bulb back in and it still worked we put  anew bulb in but i wanted to see if it lit and it did !!!! 

a lot of the mercury bulbs I get from my friend which was in service for over 20 years.......my oldest bulb I got was a GTE Sylvania 100 watt which was in a streetlight in Baltimore area from 1973 to 2006 then it was removed and given to me.......the bulb kinda works....but very dim

A lot of bulbs from the 1970s lasts over 20-25 years while today's mercury bulbs don't last as long.........

HPS used to last longer but now they make junk HPS........I have a HPS bulb that was in a streetlight in my neighborhood from 1997 to the late 2005 when the pole and fixture fell down and I aquired the bulb which was thrown off the fixture
http://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-4121

the fixture was about 1987 but the bulb was 1997


MH...I donno too much about them but someone told me they last longer now.......

LPS...no clue

There are some mercs that are still burning nightly since the 1960s and 1970s. They are not even dimmed. Still perfectly usable light! The mercs made in the 1980s are slightly lower in quality, but the Philips-Westinghouse lamps will still work for well over 20 years. I still see a lot of the old Philips BT-28 Lifeguards in service.

silverliner what part of the usa are u in ? im in phx arizona

I currently live near San Jose, California. I plan to move down to Southern California in the near future. I'll send you a PM.

i thought so my co workers family lives there and hes here in phx ill tell u his area when i see him next i told him a guy i know which is u is from there he was liek kool he knows im a street light nut he says theres ton of old ones there

There is an old 175W bucket light on my old house (will be moving back there when I get out of school) thats running a BT shaped lamp, It's been there aslong as I can remember, And I'm sure it was installed long ago since the previous owners were both in their seventies... the lamp is some sortof cleartop, it has not dimmed a bit as far as i can tell...

Ive seen back when GE made HPS  at time were very decent.  Street light was installed in 1982 i can tell
Some had orginal lamps .  Early HPS started out
With a classic MV glow then warmed  up to HPS
Color.  Some these lamps lasted until LED take over
Thse had LED beat any day.

My girlfriends parents got a HPS from Phillips back in 1994 and he gave it to me just when me and Kenzie started dating. He gave it to me because he knew I liked them

When he gave me the bulb and I got the correct gear for it  and I was about to screw it in, Kenzie stopped me and said "Don't turn it on, you'll kill it". Well I screwed it in and fired it up anyway
The startup was flashy Im going to tell you step by step what happened

1. The arc took a second to get struck
2. It flashed 3 times and went to a mercury vapor green for 3 mins
4. After that it went into the sodium stage gradually over 10 mins. At one point it was 2700K
5. From that point till today the lamp has been running 24/7 for about 1 1/2 years now
The lamp is not dead, it just basically leaked every bit of sodium out
The lamp was a 600 watt HPS

Your parents are growers or something? Never heard of a 600W HPS being used elsewhere...

Your parents are growers or something? Never heard of a 600W HPS being used elsewhere...

Come to think of it, I haven't ever seen them used anywhere else, but that's not saying you couldn't use them for street lighting but that is a lot of light for home use unless you have a huge yard..

I have seen the 600W HPS lamps and fixtures sold by the plant lamp companies.Don't see 600W HPS in other services.

My gfs parents gave me it
Yes it is a grow lamp
It’s by ViaVolt

Come to think of it, I haven't ever seen them used anywhere else, but that's not saying you couldn't use them for street lighting but that is a lot of light for home use unless you have a huge yard..

I use it in my gfs apartment, haven’t gotten any light complaints