Difference between revisions of "Philips Master PL-Electronic"

Master PL-Electronic and Genie E-saver compact fluorescent lamps with integrated 220-240V ballasts with E14 and E27 bases

*Typical lifetime of 12.000 to 15.000 hours (Master PL-Electronic)

*Luminous efficacy of 46 to 65 lumens/watt (Master PL-Electronic)

Flourescent lamps are the most popular and widely used lighting source. Still widely used in most indoor environments due to their high effciency and very good colour reproduction, flourescent lamp stocks and availability is still high. Millions of these lamps have been produced worldwide for decades. They are clearly suited for indoor lighting especially when paired with an electronic ballast that eliminates flicker and also increases system efficiency. Due to the great variety of lamps, there are some suggestions for use. Most flourescent lamps operate well at 25 degrees Celsius ambient temperature and have very low light output in freezing or below freezing environments but hot environments also reduce efficiency.

Super 80 lamps have been the most popular lamp type since the early 2000s and up to the present (2021). They may still be found new, are cheap and have very good performance. This lamp type is especially suited for areas that require a large amount of light. Due to the lamp's size and luminous flux, they are best suited for floodlighting although they can be just as well used for general lighting in any conditions. These lamps have a tendency of over saturating objects colour appearance which may be a desired or undesired side effect. Any interior can be well and pleasantly light with these lamps although foliage, plants, flowers are very well showcased.

 

90 De Luxe lamps have balanced, good colour reproduction with a slight efficiency reduction compared with Super 80 lamps. Due to their slightly higher sale price and slightly lower luminous flux, they were significantly less popular than Super 80 lamps. The major benefits of these lamps is that colour reproduction is very close to natural light, offering a highly realistic perspective on the environments. 90 De Luxe lamps can showcase fine goods, furniture, creating a pleasant, comfortable atmosphere in offices, living and dining rooms, bedrooms.

 

90 Graphica lamps were specialist items, high-end products that had a highly accurate colour reproduction. They were used in environments such as the printing and publishing business were comparisons and proofing of printed materials was required. These lamps had very low efficiency compared with other flourescent lamps but had a almost unique abilities for professional environments. While these lamps can be used in interior lighting and they showcase everything as is they were light by the sun on a clear day, their lower efficiency, slightly higher luminous flux loss due to aging and limited colour appearance selection make them quite unsuitable for general lighting. 90 Graphica lamps have been manufactured in very low quantities which means that stocks are scarce.

* Neutral white colour appearance lamps were seldomly used as the 3000, 4000, 6500 K lamps offered satisfactory variety; the 3500 K lamps or neutral white were traditionally popular in the United Kingdom;

| Low glare risk, uniform lighting || Quite large lamps and fixtures

| High efficiency, long life, very good colour rendering || Fragile construction

| Mostly suited for directional light || Sensitive to operating temperature

| Quick lamp start and restart, inexpensive || Requires lamp gear

The TL-D range was conceived as a complete portfolio which was quite well suited for any task. While commercial lighting was the most successful market, flourescent lamps were present also in residential and industrial environments and they were highly successful. Super 80, 90 De luxe and 90 Graphica lamps were up-market products that catered to efficiency as well as good colour reproduction. Until the advent of advanced LED lamps, flourescent lamps were unsurpassed in terms of efficiency and lighting comfort. The lamp's quick restart, good light stability even on conventional, magnetic gear, and reasonably simple wiring made them easy to service although the lamp bi-pin connection was prone to failure due to lamp's handling as well as normal wear, the system was reasonably easy to repair and failures were quite obvious. The only drawback of these upper market lamps ranges was a slightly higher price than typical TL-D standard lamps and sensitivity to operating temperatures, common to all flourescent lamps. This major drawback seriously limited outdoor applications.

 

Super 80 lamps were advantageous due to high luminous output and low price. The wide array of colour temperatures caters to any application. Warm colours or more active daylight ambiances can be created easily. The lamps' very good stability and output ensures a long service life with minimal degradation. This was especially important compared with TL-D Standard lamps, as the older lamp type aged much quicker and had lower light output along with colour reproduction. Requirements for higher than 80 Ra colour rendering index in Europe made the lamps extremely popular and even made them as cheap or even cheaper than TL-D standard lamps due to volumes, marketing and economies of scale. This 1980's lamp had a massive impact in late 90s and early 2000s as most indoor environments became light as such.

 

90 De Luxe lamps were very good flourescent lamps. Combining the efficiency of Super 80 lamps with the uniform spectrum allowed by certain technologies developed for TL-D standard lamps made the 90 De Luxe lamps a near high-end choice. With very good colour reproduction, quite high system efficiency and comfortable light with similar colour appearance choices as with Super 80 and standard TL-D lamps, 90 De Luxe lamps were offering major benefits in lighting unsurpassed by previous technologies. Although De Luxe lamps were developed in late 70s they suffered from reduced system efficiency and higher price which limited their market attractiveness. The new 90 De Luxe lamps offered good enough energy efficiency and light output to be competitive which meant that these flourescent lamps started to be more successful. However, their slightly higher cost and wide availability of Super 80 lamps made 90 De Luxe lamps a quite rare presence except in more demanding commercial and residential applications.

 

90 Graphica lamps were high-end lamps designed for requirements of niche markets. Their efficiency was much less important than strict adherence to product manufacturing control, stability, and accurate colour reproduction. These lamps are true state-of-the-art products for situations where proofing of printed or on-screen materials is paramount and they were very successful. This product line has existed for more than 20 years and perfectly suited demanding technical requirements but is less suited for home or office environments due to price and scarcity. Low light outputs relative to other lamp types and especially to the Super 80 line seriously limits appeal even if perfect colour reproduction is a major advantage. Keep in mind that no known light source was available until these and compatible lamps from other manufacturers reached a fantastic colour rendering index of 98. Although incandescent and high intensity discharge lamps can get close with filters and special lamp types to accurate daylight reproduction, 90 Graphica lamps are truly unique.

== Operation ==  

All lamps require the same lamp gear that can be either conventional, composed of a magnetic, reactive or inductive ballast placed in series with the lamp along with a starter that preheats the lamp's filament to ensure reliable starts and low lamp stress. An electronic lamp gear, preferably with preheating, can be used to increase light output, eliminate flicker and increase the lamp's service life. Note that some cheap electronic ballasts do not actually offer preheating and start instantly the lamp, reducing the lamp's useful life. Preheating of lamps is assumed if there is any mention of a 0.5second duration on the electronic ballast label or the word preheating. Most world manufacturers released electronic control gear and some products even allowed variable dimming using special protocols.

 

While a dimmed flouresecent lamp is not as efficient as full power operation, there were and are some environments were such flexibility is appreciated. Note that starting and operating dimmed lamps is less reliable and the temperature balance and optimum operation conditions slightly deviate in these circumstances. Overpowering a lamp is possible but it is not advised. While Super 80 lamps are best suited for these circumstance that increase light output with some reduction in efficiency and service lamps, operation in such conditions stresses the lamp. Note that operating in cold environments, as a deviation from ideal conditions, reduces lamp current and power, making the lamp slightly unstable and dim.

 

Closed as well as open fixtures are very well suited for any lamp type. In general, open fixtures are better suited for lamps operating in warmer indoor environments while enclosed fixtures are better suited for colder environments. Despite what any datasheet may suggest, deviating higher or lower than the set 30-35 degrees Celsius lamp temperature slightly reduces efficiency. Super 80 lamps are the least affected by temperature changes as only the internal UV radiation can be influenced. 90 De Luxe and especially 90 Graphica lamps are more sensitive to additional light losses due to internal coating's temperature variation.

Flourescent powders were developed to convert UV-light into visible light. Some of these powders were capable of emitting light at some wavelengths, making specific colours to be cast around but they had to be quite ressistant to UV-light and efficient. This meant that some time passed until the advent of halophosphate based colours that made possible the first daylight T12 flourescent lamps, around late 1930s. This was a major achievement as such lamps had the capability of directly competing with incandescent lamps and offer better efficiency and longer life.

Subsequent developments improved lamp life and created a wide variety of flourescent powders that cast white light with different colour appearances from warm and neutral to cold and daylight. Higher and lower power lamps were created and standardization established. The preferred lamp gear turned from incandescent ballasting or mixed light to magnetic or reactive ballasts, which improved system efficiency. In the late 1970s, following requirements for higher energy efficiency due to the world oil crisis of 1973, there were major advances in technology.

The advent of high efficiency tri-band or tri-phosphorous lamps was the most important landmark. Successful development of flourescent powders that had peak UV to visible light conversion at blue, red, and green colours with peaks near the ideal wavelengths made it possible to release lamps with specific colour appearances. This high energy in light conversion was complemented by changes in the lamps gas's fill from argon to Krypton, reducing thermal losses with a slight increase in operating voltage and starting voltage. This was the market releases of the the highly successful T8 lamp, or TL-D lamp that dominated since the early 90s. Of course, up until this time there were improvements in cathodes design and electron emmissive coatings as well as other performance enhancing solutions but the release of the TL-D lamp was the most important moment.

Production of specialist lamps started in the 1950s with coloured lamps but also expanded to include De Luxe and specific lamps that would cater for many purposes. De Luxe lamps were an improvement of standard lamps in terms of colour reproction but was less efficient and had shorter service life due to coatings that were less stable in time than standard lamps. The advent of the tri-band TL-D flourescent lamp opened up the possibility of using part of its development to release new De Luxe lamps by combining such phosphorus coatings with previously developed ones. The result was a more stable, higher efficiency De Luxe lamp. Graphica lamps were a slight adaptation of previously developed phosphorus to TL-D lamps and their gas's fill and some experimentation in improving other aspects of operation to achieve better performance.

Philips flourescent lamps had very good manufacturing tolerances and the lamp's construction along with flourescent powder quality made reliable, predictable operation entirely ensured. Other world manufacturers were capable of similar performance. However, some slight differences were noticeable. For instance, Philips had slightly less powerful red phosporus than Osram, which means that entirely equivalent lamps from both manufacturers had slightly different colour appearance. On the other side, Chinese branded lamps were much inferior in terms of flourescent powder quality and colour reproduction as well as efficiency and service life.