The Low Pressure Sodium Lamp

This yellow light was once widely used for street lighting but has lost popularity to the high-pressures sodium lamp. It was developed in 1920 at Westinghouse, and commercialized by Philips in 1932. The low-pressure sodium lamp is also known as an "LPS" lamp. It is still widely used in certain cities like Bogota, San Diego, and some European cities. Learn about how the lamp starts, warms up using argon and neon, and vaporizes the solid sodium.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• low-pressure sodium
• Sodium-vapor Lamp
• alkali
• metal-vapor
• history of electric light
• Marcello Pirani
• Aurthor H. Compton
• Nederlands
• engineering
• engineers
• lamps
• electric light
• borosilicate
• quartz
• vacuum
• LPS

[GFVagent007]

Nice video describing SOX lamps. One thing you should mention is that they are 100% mercury free, so having to break them up in water is a small price to pay for a very environmentally friendly lamp. I have not had problems with the green vision, but others may be more sensitive. I have built a couple custom full cutoff area light fixtures using a 55W and a 18W running on high frequency electronic fluorescent gear and the light output is impressive.

[beeped100]

SOX/LPS is the best light for anywhere color isn't important; it is more efficient than any other light source.

[Skiller444]

Nice video! I'm a big fan of Low Pressure Sodium lighting, I actually have one in my room (SOX-E 26W) in a street light, I also have a video of it. I personally don't have much trouble going back to "color vision" after being under the light for a while, but I wouldn't stare into it for a longer time (it's not dangerous at all or so but it's just so bright!). It's a very fascinating light source to me, especially since we hardly have them at all in street lighting here in Germany.

[FrontSideBus]

LPS is still the prevailing tech for UK streetlighting although HPS is creeping in at an alarming rate!

[ElmerCat]

Thank you for that excellent and fascinating demonstration of LPS lighting. I recently set up a 18W SOX bulb for researchers that wanted to take photographs with no color information.

I bought an inexpensive ( $25 - Fulham WH2 ) ballast to drive the bulb and found the correct (B22) bayonet socket on the Internet for a couple bucks.

It was exciting to turn it on and watch the bulb warm up, beautiful too! It took more than ten minutes to achieve full brightness. Incredible for only 18 watts!