High pressure sodium and mercury vapor bulbs

[pimpneightez]

Any PM's in high voltage light bulbs? other than mercury.

 

[macfixer01]

Any PM's in high voltage light bulbs? other than mercury.

I work on digital movie projectors and the high pressure Xenon arc lamps contain a nice chuck of Tungsten for one of the electrodes. I've wondered if those are worth taking with me, but I tend to doubt it? I always put them back in the plastic case and box, and leave them for the theater to dispose of. I don't know much about sodium and mercury lamps but the Xenon lamps only use a high voltage AC to ionize the gas when they strike an arc. The lamp actually runs on low voltage/high current DC about like an arc welder puts out. The specifics depend on the lamp wattage and it's power setting which is based upon the brightness needed for the specific theater house. 25 Volts at 160Amps would be a common example though (4000 Watts).

macfixer01

 

[macfixer01]

Hey I forgot to mention... Since I started this job I've heard horror stories about those who had lamps explode on them while they were being replaced. We are supposed to wear a ballistic vest, face shield, and leather gloves when changing lamps. The pressure in them is several atmospheres, and higher yet if replacing one between shows that hasn't fully cooled yet. I've never had the displeasure myself but people describe it to me like a hand grenade going off, and of course shards of the glass envelope would be flying at you. When disposing the lamps they drop them first to discharge the gas and render them safe (this is done with the lamp enclosed in it's plastic case and that inside the cardboard box). Just wanted to bring up that safety hazard. Good luck!

macfixer01

 

[pimpneightez]

Exploding hand grenade bulbs! I hope you get hazard pay.