Vintage Atlas Super Five 5' 80W Fluorescent Tubes With Braided Cathodes

[P42STUFF]

@Y0uTube235 Braided cathodes consist of a hollow mesh cylinder formed from 7 thin tungsten wires so they hold a large quantity of emitter inside the cylinder. Standard cathodes used today are simply a coiled coil filament similar those used in mains voltage filament lamps.

[P42STUFF]

@Y0uTube235 They did. In some of the old sales literature they used to say 'double your profits with Atlas double life fluorescent lamps'.

They're running on a 5' 80W SRS circuit. The ends should be very black just before the tubes reach EOL as the cathodes contain a great amount of emitter compared to standard ones and they are unshielded. Some of the later Atlas Super lamps did indeed have cathode shields. They can operate cold cathode at EOL, usually on SRS circuits.

[P42STUFF]

@Y0uTube235 I've got that down in the description, it's a hollow mesh cylinder formed from 8 fine tungsten wires braided together.

[TheDieselNut]

Very nice find!!