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Difference between revisions of "Philips HPI Plus"
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== History == | == History == | ||
The lamp technology was an improvement of | The lamp technology was an improvement of previously developed mercury vapour lamps. The potential for fluorescent powders was mostly exhausted by early 70s which meant that research concentrated on releasing better lamps that produced light directly from the discharge tube. This research was also carried previously but results were modest, as stable compounds with good colour reproduction were found to be quite aggressive and lead to short service life. Sodium, Scandium, Indium, Thallium were attempted as main elements that can offer a balanced light output but they required a specific balance of temperature and pressure to achieve best results. One major limitation was that certain compounds were costly or difficult to manufacture or mix in specific amounts, which meant that suitable results could not be found for many decades. In the late 70s and early 80s most major manufactures were able to center on specific technologies that reached good enough results for general lighting, with predictable performance. | ||
The market for large lamps was important as there was an interest in using more energy efficient lamps when the early 1970s oil crises brought new challenges. High pressure mercury vapour lamps were efficient but their light was not white while improvements in high pressure mercury vapour lamps were not satisfactory. While metal hallide lamps were more expensive than mercury vapour lamps, the energy savings that were around 25 to 50% meant that this technology was attractive enough considering much improved colour reproduction despite shorter lifetime. The ability to run on mercury vapour gear and the ability to retrofit these fixtures was critical to market success while the ability to run on high pressure sodium lamps ensured improvements on other installations. These are the most important factors that ensured market success as metal hallide lamps required careful installation, operation and restocking. | |||
Of course, metal hallide lamps were always less successful than fluorescent lamps, especially when larger fixtures, especially indoors, were not an issue. Fluorescent lamps were easy to stock, replace, had a longer useful life and they offered custom light reproduction with great prospects for energy efficiency improvements. Lower power rating metal hallides were developed and marketed but they required specific fixtures that were able to withstand the possibility of a blown old arc tube and the high heat output and complex operating gear, along with worse flicker than fluorescent lamps. All this, along with a large price justified by complex manufacturing quality control, meant that fluorescent lamps were always more popular in most commercial and all residential applications. | |||
LED lamps affected the most this expensive lamp and gear technology, as it quickly surpassed it in ease of use, much longer useful lifetimes, better colour reproduction and versatility in both indoor and outdoor applications. This means that the market for metal hallide lamps was quickly diminishing even quicker than high pressure sodium vapour or even the older mercury vapour lamps, both surviving longer due to lower lamp replacement costs. | |||
== Manufacturing specificities == | == Manufacturing specificities == | ||