Mercury vapor ballast is created to drive tubular ultraviolet lamps. There are two kinds of mercury vapor lamps. One of the most typical will be the medium pressure lamp. This lamp series has been standardized and is available in arc lengths of 1 inch to 120 inches. The other sort of lamp is usually a mercury vapor lamp with metal additives. The additives made use of inside the lamp produce alterations in the spectral output.
Ballasts are applied to initiate and manage the arc in mercury and metal additive curing lamps. Mercury vapor ballast deliver an instantaneous high voltage to strike the components within a mercury vapor lamp, making a plasma that, when initiated, is sustained by the Mercury vapor ballast. Total wattages as much as 50 kilowatts may be created. Our continuous wattage ballast consists of a transformer, capacitors and ignitor.
Advantages
3 occasions as effective as incandescent.
Available within a wide range of ratings, colors, sizes and shapes.
Comparatively low unit cost and a higher typical rated life (about 24,000 hours when operated on a 10 hour cycle). This is 24 occasions longer life than incandescent.
Disadvantages.
Except for incandescents, they are essentially the most inefficient source of light, with an efficacy within the 25 to 55 lumens per watt range.
Mercury lamps can be tremendously impacted by lamp lumen depreciation and must be replaced immediately after 24,000 hours. Poor lumen maintenance in comparison to other HID sources.
Demand a maximum warm-up period of five to seven minutes prior to providing full light output, based on lamp variety, Mercury Vapor Ballast and ambient temperature. They are able to be employed only exactly where this delay is acceptable, Four to 5 minute cooling and restart time￡?New outdoor installations are illegal beneath some state laws.
Lamps are fairly voltage sensitive. Unless specific ballasts are applied, care has to be taken to keep the supply voltage inside plus or minus 5% of the rated voltage.
Mercury lamp ballasts are noisy. When this presents a problem, remote mounted ballasts may be an alternative. A particular dimming ballast is required to dim mercury lamps.