Philips UHP 150w

I got the $300~$500 UHP lamp from a friend who took it out of a projector.

Its a Philips 150w UHP (Ultra High Pressure) mercury lamp. It's not the same thing as the mercury vapor that came with the yardlight you used to buy for $24 at wal-mart. It cost a lot of money because it's a precise light source. It take a lot of work to get the parts made and lined up for optimal performance.

What I am about to do here is NOT TO BE REPEATED UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MESSING WITH! YOU COULD GET BLINDED OR KILLED! YOU WILL GET A MAJOR SUNBURN IF YOU GET ANY BARE SPOT OF YOUR BODY IN FRONT OF THE LIGHT!You have been warned, so DO NOT hold me at fault if you lose your eyes or get killed if you mess with this sort of stuff. You'll see me with bare arms in exposure with the light. My mistake and I will get a sunburn. Hopefully not so bad since I already got a tan after a week at the beach.

The first thing shown is what I call the Zeus Lamp Tester 5000. I use it to test lamps or help start it as you will see soon.

Yes that's the lamp itself. Fancy ain't it?

The wires on the lamp goes to the ballast I have. The lamp is 150w at 40v and the ballast is for 150w at 55v so it's pretty close. Its for High Pressure Sodium vapors. THOSE lamps you get for $20 apiece. (I hope IDA doesn't force us to use the yellowish lamps in LCD projectors. It will look nasty even at HD.)

The next item shown is the vacuum cleaner that is used for cleaning computers but wasn't used much. It makes a great cooler for the lamp. The hole on top is the intake while the other hole is the exhaust. The burn mark next to the exhaust is caused by being too close to the lamp's focal spot. (Its where the light join up to form a very bright 1/4" spot.)

The next part is when I kick start it with the Zeus Lamp Tester.

The noise you hears next is the cooler. The spots on the wall is the mercury drops being vaporized. Dunno where the drops reforms before falling on the inner burner's wall before vaporizing again. I shows the way I hold the cooler over the lamp. (I keep the exhaust pointed directly to the inner burner deep within the reflector.)

If I stop blowing on the lamp with the cooler it will stop running. The lamp is fine. I have run it for 3 minutes with the cooler going. If I start it and run it without the cooler. I won't last 30 seconds before it kick out.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• UHP
• mercury
• projector
• lamp
• 150w

[SubaruB4RSK]

I ran a UHP lamp off a HID ballast however it only outputs 35W so I never could get it brighter.. plus I could run it without keeping it cool. What are you using to power the lamp?

[AntiHPS]

A S55 sodium vapor ballast of 150w.

[form109]

well its bright!