Metal Halide
Metal Halide
metal halide?
I am in the process of changing out three metal halide bulb.I wanted to make sure that all the new MH bulbs (when I got home).The MH's screwed into my house lamp just fine, but did not work.I wonder why.
Do MH bulbs rewire a ballast in order to work?
Yes. And a capacitor to start them.
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It's not often that the world of garden lighting is stirred by a new lighting technology. Then two come along in quick succession. Not so long ago LEDs were the Next Big Thing. Now there's a new kid in town - the MR16 metal halide lamp.
Shrinking metal halide technology down to the diminutive dimensions of an MR16 lamp is a major technical achievement. The difficulty of doing so is reflected in the very high cost of the lamps, although it seems fair to assume that prices will fall as production ramps up and competition between manufacturers begins to bite.
But price aside, what makes the metal halide MR16 lamp remarkable is its performance. Currently available in 20 Watt and 35 Watt versions, both produce approximately three times the light output of an equivalent standard MR16 halogen lamp. The 20 Watt lamp therefore has a light output equivalent to around 60 Watts of standard halogen, and the 35 Watt lamp has a light output equivalent to about 100 Watts of standard halogen.
Greener readers, or those who like to keep an eye on their electricity bills, will have already spotted that all that light is produced for relatively few Watts. Admittedly, metal halide's energy consumption does not grab the headlines in quite the same way as the mere 5 Watts of the MR16 LEDs and E27 fluorescent lamps commonly used in outdoor lighting, but metal halide is actually more energy efficient than either in terms of lumens produced per Watt.
So the twin selling points of the metal halide MR16 lamp is that it packs a lot of lighting punch into a discreetly sized spotlight, and you will not have to check with your bank every time you wish to switch it on. This was sufficient to persuade at least one garden lighting manufacturer - New Zealand's Hunza - to harness this remarkable little lamp with a new range of specially designed outdoor lights.
The main consideration was to design lights with space to accommodate the electronic ballast required to operate the metal halide lamp. This meant that these garden lights are inevitably a little larger than spotlights using the traditional MR16 halogen lamp. So their chunky good looks might not have quite the unobtrusive elegance required in smaller courtyard-style gardens, but then they are probably too powerful for this kind of space.
Where metal halide outdoor lights come into their own is in larger gardens where their slightly bigger size doesn't jar and their high light output opens up new garden lighting possibilities. To give perhaps the most extreme example, Hunza's Twin Pole Light Metal Halide fitted with two 35 Watt lamps pumps out light equivalent to four 50 Watt standard halogen lamps - sufficient to highlight even the most substantial tree.
These new metal halide garden lights have other advantages, too. They produce a very clean, crisp, cool light with excellent colour rendition. They come in a choice of three beam widths, so they have the flexibility to be used for a variety of lighting effects. They have a long lamp life of between 10,000 and 12,000 hours - which is just as well, considering their cost. And they connect directly to the mains electricity supply with no need for a transformer.
Do metal halide garden lights have any downsides? One is that the 20 Watt and 35 Watt lamps require different ballasts, so if you buy a metal halide exterior light set up for the 20 Watt lamp, you can't upgrade to a 35 Watt lamp at a later date. Another is that they take a minute or two to reach full power and require a rest period between switching off and switching back on again, so they are not suitable for connecting to a movement sensor.
While it might be an exaggeration to say "the future's bright, the future's metal halide", there seems no doubt that this powerful little lamp is here to stay and destined to take its place beside halogen, fluorescent and LED technologies. In doing so, it gives customers a new outdoor lighting option to choose from that, uniquely, combines low energy with high light output.
Peter Reid is an author for http://engineeringwithlight.com/, Europe's online shop for Hunza outdoor and garden lighting
Many thanks for reading our Metal Halide article
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