Author Topic: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide  (Read 52328 times)
dieselducy
Member
**
Offline

Gender: Male
View Posts
View Gallery


WWW
Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « on: February 25, 2009, 11:33:13 PM » Author: dieselducy
I am beginning to believe that MV is better. WHY are the fixtures no longer made?  i was in lowes today and MV has a 24,000 hr life  and the MH only has a 10,000 life?   and the MH is more than twice the price!!  why? 
Logged

I LOVE preheat fluorescent!  Preheat forever!!

lightman64
Member
*****
Offline

Gender: Male
View Posts
View Gallery

Zero 88 Lighting Controls Rule!


Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #1 on: February 26, 2009, 06:24:48 PM » Author: lightman64
On January 1 2007 or 2006, the US goverment banned the sale of, importing, and manufacturing, of mercury vapor fixtures or ballasts. Why? We here at LG aren't sure, but we neither aren't happy about it. MV bulbs are still sold for existing fixtures but production of these may stop soon. Probe Start metal halide are also being banned soon. It is true that Metal Halide has a better CRI but at EOL metal halide lamps can explode. If you want a MV fixture, many websites still sell them and people on LG here can help you find one.
                                                      - lightman64
Logged

The future of street lighting is Induction, not nasty HPS lights or cr@ppy LED lights!
Preheat CFL's should make a comeback!

Medved
Member
*****
Offline

Gender: Male
View Posts
View Gallery

Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #2 on: March 09, 2009, 02:13:19 PM » Author: Medved
The price depend on demand: As MV fixture sale is banned, there is low demand, so the price went down. Secons, as the MV is well known and very mature technology, many companies are able to make them, so there is taff competition, cutting prices, so their margin down. And moreover MV's last long, so not making much business.
As MH is the only white alternative, there is large demand, so it allow manufacturers to make more money. As this is more challenging technology, there are fewer players able to make useable lamps, so this allow for higher margins, so retail prices.

Btw. I have stronger and stronger feeling, then this is the real motivation for most "environmental protection" laws, same with incandescent ban:
Prices are so low, so not possible to make money on them. Regular fluorescents are not promoted, even if technically superior (you don't have to make so many compromises), as they are not making as much money - they last too long.
Logged

No more selfballasted c***

Mercury Man
Member
***
Offline

Gender: Male
View Posts
View Gallery


Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #3 on: March 10, 2009, 12:55:46 AM » Author: Mercury Man
Medved, I wholeheartedly agree with what you are saying.  Everything does come down to the almighty dollar.  No one really cares what everyday citizen's preferences are.  We live in a political universe.  Why else would MV be banned by people who know absolutely nothing of its efficacy and reliability, except for the mentality that just because something is, as you said, "mature" technology MUST automatically be bad?  And Dark Sky, they favor the usage of ugly yellow-orange light to white light?  Makes no sense at all.  Light pollution in an orange color is more of a pollutant than that from a white light (and go figure--clouds are white.)  Why make the sky look like orange sherbet?  ???
« Last Edit: March 10, 2009, 05:05:51 PM by Brian » Logged
form109
Guest
Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #4 on: June 24, 2009, 03:05:23 PM » Author: form109
Mercury Vapor is indeed better....it last longer and doesnt go Boom at the end of its rated life,also very reliable...while HPS Fixtures are Cycling mercury vapor fixtures are still opperating.
Logged
Medved
Member
*****
Offline

Gender: Male
View Posts
View Gallery

Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #5 on: June 24, 2009, 04:08:58 PM » Author: Medved
For streetlighting there is one feature MV's would not meet: Point-like light source except uncoated types (but these are really not efficent).
If you want to send the light into required pattern with high efficiency, your optics has to be much larger then your light source. To have reasonable size lantern, you need really small area source, so why MH win there.

And the lifetime is only one design parameter, beside of many others. And as everywhere else, there is nothing best in all categories, so you should make compromises.
Few decades ago the electricity was cheap cheap in US, so the major cost of light was cost of lamp replacement. So a long and reliable life was a prime importance, so every design modification was evaluated with first question "How it affect the life?". That's, why we have 24+k life rated mercury lamps in US.
Then an energy crisis arrived and we see huge move towards "more efficient" lamps and first HPS boom. But before lamps might be marketed, the crisis was over, so the lifetime return to it's prime importance.
But now, when the energy costs are already much longer and higher, so nobody expect the return, the matter of prime importance become the efficacy and the "card flip over": First question is "How it will affect the efficacy?"
So we have second "HPS boom", at least fortunately with more suitable ballast and lamp designs.
Beside this, people are more demanding for aesthetic aspect, so when the money allow, they want high quality white light. And for this higher quality light category MH's do offer cheaper solution - the energy cost would be higher for MV then CMH. Part is, because those quality demanding areas are small and dense, so relamping is not as expensive (compare to rural areas, where you need to travel miles to change one bulb).

There is even a difference between EU and US (in the top of MV era): Lamps for US are rated 175W, 45lm/W, 24+khours, while practically the same lamp for Europe was rated 250W, 60lm/W, 15khours. The European rating just run the lamp hotter - so the efficacy rises, but the lifetime shorten. It was so, because in Europe was cheaper relamping (more dense installations), but more expensive electricity, so in Europe was OK to sacrifice the life in order to improve the efficacy. One interesting result: Such hotter-running lamps more likely fully die at their EOL, instead of being unnoticeable dimmer and dimmer...
Logged

No more selfballasted c***

bluelights
Member
***
Offline

Gender: Male
View Posts
View Gallery


Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #6 on: June 24, 2009, 04:39:44 PM » Author: bluelights
Well, I hope that cool white CMH (or even QMH) replaces HPS as fast as possible and brings the MV atmosphere back, at least partially...
Logged

"The orange cloud looks like floating nuclear waste."
Save the mercury lamp

oldlights
Guest
Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #7 on: June 27, 2009, 01:04:27 PM » Author: oldlights
 MVs last longer and don't break. At work we have 1000W MHs in enclosed fixtures above the swimming pool, these are lots of fun to relamp and not spill any glass in the pool.The Philips ones shatter the most.
Logged
KEDER
Member
***
Offline

View Posts
View Gallery


Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #8 on: June 27, 2009, 03:06:14 PM » Author: KEDER
Hmm, at my local hardware store in bailey, i found a 175 watt MV area light! hmm it was 75 dollars. it was taped, so was it returned? hmm, kinda funny that they were selling an MV light after the ban...
Logged
magslight
Member
***
Offline

Gender: Male
View Posts
View Gallery


WWW
Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #9 on: June 27, 2009, 03:50:50 PM » Author: magslight
I like the white light more than this unkindly orange aggressive light. Here in Germany(beginning in the fiftys) they want that all lanterns light white like the moon. Exclusion were a part of the gas-laterns in Berlin. We used for the most part flourescent tubes and for big Places we used HQL High-steam-pressure-quicksilver-lamps.This lantern had need a lot of power. Thanks to the night-electricity we could used the big lanterns we invented. But later the power was being more expensive and the citys replaced at first the big lanterns with the white light and later the flourescent tubes. Now we have a lot of this lanterns with ´´baby-lamps´´. Here in Germany they had banned light-bulbs with 100wattage , next year the 60wattage light-bulb and the HQL want they ban this year in parts of Germany.
In my opinon this is the wrong way.
I hope you can understand my English.
Logged
kai
Member
***
Offline

View Posts
View Gallery

Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #10 on: April 05, 2010, 01:18:18 PM » Author: kai
Well, I hope that cool white CMH (or even QMH) replaces HPS as fast as possible and brings the MV atmosphere back, at least partially...

At Dresden a good amount of lights in the centre have during the last years indeed been changed over from HPS to MH, in some cases presumably using retrofit lamps (Osram has a 70 W MH lamp that can be used in place of a HPS lamp). And yes, I think this is a considerable improvement, resulting in a much more pleasant atmosphere.
Logged
Roi_hartmann
Member
*****
Offline

Gender: Male
View Posts
View Gallery


Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #11 on: April 05, 2010, 02:13:27 PM » Author: Roi_hartmann
Last weekend I was visiting with my relatives in southern Finland. There, I first time saw MH cobrahead used as a streetlight. I have usually thought that MH is only used in decorative lightning and other "not basic lighting" but plain cobrahead with reasonable wattage(dimly litt street) lamp was pretty nice combination. Night was pretty foggy and I thought that this could be how it seemed when incandescent lamp was still used in streetlighting as they used pretty warm white MHs. I did not have a camera with me so its no picture.

still, MV is number one. MH is coming in good second in HID lamps
Logged

Aamulla aurinko, illalla AIRAM

chapman84
Guest
Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #12 on: April 06, 2010, 12:45:16 PM » Author: chapman84
I like mercury vapor better than HPS or MH, metal halide contains more mercury in it than mercury vapor and always tends to explode, also high pressure sodium creates an unpleasant orange haze at night (even full cutoff ones) and isn't very visable at night. This ban is ridiculous and no one in their right minds would of ever thought about passing this law in the first place. All these special interest groups and the government shouldn't have any say so about what lights we can and can't use outside, it's not their business.
Logged
Xytrell
Member
***
Offline

Gender: Male
View Posts
View Gallery

Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #13 on: April 06, 2010, 01:21:13 PM » Author: Xytrell
I'm pretty sure we've established Mercury vapor lamps have more mercury per lumen than any other.
Logged
chapman84
Guest
Re: Mercury Vapor vs Metal Halide « Reply #14 on: April 06, 2010, 02:44:06 PM » Author: chapman84
I'm pretty sure we've established Mercury vapor lamps have more mercury per lumen than any other.

@Xytrell, think before you comment on this!
Logged
Print 
© 2005-2024 Lighting-Gallery.net | SMF 2.0.19 | SMF © 2021, Simple Machines | Terms and Policies