HID lamp handling

[Travis Evans]

[Caution: Learning new newsreader. Take all appropriate safety
measures. ]

I have a quick question regarding physical handling of HID lamps. The
instruction sheet for my 50-watt HPS Lights of America fixture says that
the lamp should only be handled with gloves to prevent life from being
shortened. Actually, the English version of the instructions says that
oils from hands “*will* considerably shorten the life of the bulbâ€
whereas the Spanish version says “*can* considerably shorten...†(my
emphasis) Now, which one is correct?

I don't have any such warnings anywhere with my 100-watt MH and HPM
Lithonia fixtures. The small box the MH lamp came out of has a long list of
warnings on it, but none of them say anything about touching the lamp.

Is this something that applies only to HPS lamps, or is it good practice
to avoid directly touching all HID lamps, or is this pretty much
unnecessary and only included in some instructions for liability reasons
(or whatever)?

 

[JB]

I have never heard of that sort of a warning with any HPS lamps. It
actually sounds more like the warning whihc would come with a tungsten
halogen source. As far as the warning for Xenon HID's, isn't that because
the burner (or arc tube) is the whole lamp with no outer jacket?

The only SON lamps which would come with a warning not to touch with bare
hands would be the SON-TD types. These double-ended lamps do have a quartz
outer envelope which is smaller in diameter than the hard glass
tubular/elliptical single-ended types.

By the way, I absolutely agree with stressing the warning for those
specialty HID's like projection lamps. The threat of rupture is
significant. If I remember correctly there is also special packaging,
just in case.

I will second Jeff's comments here. As a lamp service engineer for Thorn for
many years i had the dubious pleasure of dealing with many of these types of
lamp. All high pressure compact source lamps (XE/D, UHP, ME/D etc) are truly
dangerous beasties indeed. Full face/upper body protective gear was
mandatory when we used to carry out inspection of these sources. I once
dropped a small 250W XE/D and the fragments penetrated my boot and jeans,
actually drawing blood. The cold fill pressure of some of these lamps can
exceed 20 atmospheres, and >10x that when operating! I've seen the inside of
a searchlight lamphouse where a 3kW Xenon lamp had 'popped', and the damage
had to be seen to be believed. Many fragments of quartz envelope had
penetrated the 1mm stainless steel inner wall of the lamphouse and even
dented the outer skin of 1.5mm! Beware.

JB

 

[Travis Evans]

The only SON lamps which would come with a warning not to touch with bare
hands would be the SON-TD types. These double-ended lamps do have a quartz
outer envelope which is smaller in diameter than the hard glass
tubular/elliptical single-ended types.

My fixture which has this warning in the installation instruction page
uses a S68 lamp. The lamps I'm dealing with are just general lighting
lamps. The metal halide is M90 and the mercury is H38.

 

[Travis Evans]

The only SON lamps which would come with a warning not to touch with bare
hands would be the SON-TD types. These double-ended lamps do have a quartz
outer envelope which is smaller in diameter than the hard glass
tubular/elliptical single-ended types.

(For some reason, my followup doesn't seem to have gone through; I
apologize if this appears twice.)

My fixture which has this warning in the installation instruction page
uses a S68 lamp. The lamps I'm dealing with are just general lighting
lamps. The metal halide is M90, and the mercury is H38.

 

[JB]

(For some reason, my followup doesn't seem to have gone through; I
apologize if this appears twice.)

My fixture which has this warning in the installation instruction page
uses a S68 lamp. The lamps I'm dealing with are just general lighting
lamps. The metal halide is M90, and the mercury is H38.

You can handle all of these types with bare hands as they all have hard
glass rather than quartz outer envelopes.

JB