Difference between revisions of "Philips ML"

Philips has been releasing lamps for many decades. Lamps produced in the 70s and early 80s are probably not commonly found today. In the 90s and early 2000 Philips was manufacturing lamps in Holland and other countries, while in the last years they were doing the same thing in China. Quality was not severely affected as, realistically speaking, there were some occasional lamp defects even in their Holland produced lamps due to average manufacturing quality. It should be noted that mercury vapour lamps were mass manufactured and considered low-cost products, meaning that quality was not paramount.

Until the manufacturing plants move to China, there were small differences in this product line as the 90s and early 2000s was using the same technology. Chinese built lamps have some slight improvements that leave some aspects to be desired as well. The internal coating is thinner and has a different grain size with a potentially different powder mix, improving colour rendering more than what the datasheet suggests. Lamp lumen maintenance and uniformity is improved due to a thinner coating that degrades slower and more uniformly. However, the lamp light looks whitish-green rather than whitish-purple, which might be unpleasant for some persons.

 

Products manufactured by Philips were similar to General Electric but with a quality and consistency much above some East-European manufacturers in terms of colour rendering, light output and life. However, Philips was manufacturing lamps with shorter lifetimes and poorer internal coatings than Osram ones, even if some values specified in datasheets might not suggest much. These differences were maintained until the end of mercury vapour lamp production in the late 2010s. This Philips-Osram lamp difference must be experienced in person. On the other side, Philips lamps were much more popular and are easier to find.