I love these weird ‘80s/‘90s lighting systems. I was a kid then, and my father was an electrician and even a lighting salesman for a while. He taught me all about lighting.
Holy smokes, I never knew metal halide existed for an ordinary looking floor lamp. Ironically about 10 years ago when I got my first apartment after college, my mother gave me her halogen torchiere that she purchased in 1991 or '92, which hadn't been used for a long time but I remember how nice it lit up the living room when I was a kid. The lamp was rated for a 500 watt halogen, which was available till 1996 when UL limited the wattage to 300. I knew these halogens used lots of kilowatt hours and got very hot, so I purchased a 70 watt metal halide ballast, bulb and socket, removed the halogen sockets and rigged up the metal halide (open rated), put the ballast, ignitor and capacitor inside an enclosure and wired the lamp cord into it and left on the floor. Anyway, very crude setup but it still works to this day, puts out roughly the same brightness as the 300 watt halogen with less fire danger and easy on the power bill. Much brighter than an LED torchiere but I do miss having the dimmer switch.
@YAKUMO RAN interesting. So I'm not the only one who upgraded a halogen floor lamp to metal halide. When I upgraded the old lamp my mother had when I was a child, I was debating whether to keep the halogen sockets and use a tubular 70 watt metal halide vs a standard medium base E17 shaped bulb. I ended up using the standard E17 bulb because at the time, I was unable to find a tubular metal halide that was open rated, whereas I have an open rated bulb (the type with the thick protective glass around the arc tube) to prevent fire and burns from red hot flying glass in case of explosive lamp failure. Mine is 4200K, approx 5300 lumens, slightly brighter than a 300 watt halogen. A 100 metal halide would be about equivalent to a 500 watt halogen, I'm thinking about doing that once my 70 watt burns out, I would only need to change out the ballast. Or I might skip the ballast altogether and go with LED, if they will have a dimmable LED bulb by then that puts off around 8000 - 9000 lumens, about 500 watt halogen or 100 watt metal halide equivalent
Thank you for the awesome video! These have been around since the late 90s. My first time and only time seeing one of these lamps was in the early 2000s when I was a little kid. A new luxury hotel opened in our area and my parents took us to this hotel for a few nights for fun due to it having a pool, and a inside water park. I was fascinated with HID lights / street light fixtures at this time. When we got to our room I turned on the floor lamp near the desk and I noticed that it had 2 switches. I turned on the second switch and noticed it was some type of HID bulb in the center and it started to warm up. At the time I thought it was some type of mercury vapor bulb due to the blue-ish color on warm up. Ever since then it was a mystery on what this lamp was. I wanted one as a kid, but my parents could not remember the brand after getting back home. Finally after 20-years I figured out it was a MicroSun after doing research on google recently. So glad you posted this video as well. The one that I saw as a kid looked just like this one. Except the two lightbulbs on the side were spiral fluorescent bulbs. They sell conversion kits to convert any lamp to a MicroSun lamp. It is basically just the driver top piece with a lamp cord, all the bulbs, and the attachments to attach to any lamp base. Ordering the MicroSun conversion kit this week!
It could be of older HID ballast design which they were of DC varieties, well nowadays you can find the electronic ballasts even those that operate on 12 Volts DC that puts out AC power output nowadays, especially the computerized car headlight ballasts. In my opinion, open-rated CMH bulbs could be better especially for those CRI snobs who would rather live and die with incandescent bulbs, especially 3,000 kelvins CMH version, they have a rather nice Halogen hue (and CMH bulbs are compatible with electronic ballasts from the start, so they're in a way already pretty efficient).
I found one at the thrift store, but I did not pick it up cause it was missing the halide bulb which are expensive. Also, DC supposedly helped warm the bulb up faster. Which is why it was at full brightness so quick.
Wow, I've wondered about these for years and it's awesome to finally see someone finally do a detailed review from a lighting enthusiast's perspective.
I have this exact one, the reason they use the “proprietary lamp” and lampholder is to keep consumers from putting standard unprotected 70w lamps in, because without an open rated bulb this fixture becomes a fire hazard in the event of an arc tube rupture. Also forces the customer to purchase only their bulb. I put a e26 socket extension in mine and it runs a regular 70w just fine
My favorite lamp to run in this is the Sylvania Metalarc pro-tech 70w because it’s 3000K, it’s also open rated which is an added plus. The socket extender that fits is the plastic GE one from Ace hardware. The ceramic ones won’t fit
The deep socket I’m pretty sure is for a safety coated lamp like Shat-R-Shield. It prevents you from putting a non coated lamp in. I’ve never seen this lamp so I can’t be sure but other food-service type fixtures I’ve worked on had this same feature.
It actually has to do with whether the lamp is an open-rated lamp or not, an open-rated lamp will have a shield around the arc tube, so that in the event of a catastrophic failure, the arc tube cannot blow out the outer glass and risk injuring people or property.
Beautiful coated Metal Halide lamp!🙂 And with an Electronic Ballast you definitely cannot see the flickering of the lamp, as in the case of using a Magnetic Ballast with a much lower frequency. I also use MH lamps with an Electronic Ballast, but only tubular types with clear glass and with ceramic technology, but also with quartz... And with a high-quality Electronic Ballast, the light is beautifully stable.
I purchased a Microsun table lamp without the lamps on eBay for $60.00 after I saw this video. It worked, when I tested with a 70W open rated MHPS lamp. I went to the website and purchased two 68W MHPS lamps (3500K and 4000K) and a Microsun Control Module to convert an existing floor lamp. I am using 4000K LED light bulbs in the lamps as well.
Super cool lamp! Absolutely love it!! I think you should do some videos of lightbulbs in lava lamps. Also did you make a video of bubble lights yet? You might have? I might not have looked hard enough to see? Thank you so much again for showing and explaining your neat light bulb collections!
I recently saw one of the 68-watt metal halide replacement bulbs on eBay for $199 plus $10 shipping. Awhile back I found one of these metal halide bulbs at the ReStore that I got for $2. When I got the bulb, I had never seen or heard about Microsun and what they made, but after doing some research on it, I now know what this was about. Microsun now makes LED task light fixtures which have variable color temperatures and dimmable which are somewhat sculptural in design.
Cool I love those lamps I didn't know they made such a thing until I googled it one day and stumbled upon it. I've never even had one but I already love the idea of having a street light in my house but a teeny tiny streetlight.
It would be great if someone put GE Halarc self ballasted metal halide lamps in the side sockets! (although it wouldn't be a good thing because it would be above the rating of the sockets.
Indeed, that is what I thought as well but after trying all settings for one hour each, the filament LEDs never turned off. Maybe that function in this lamp is broken?
I wonder if the three way worked the following: Mode 1: Fillament Lamps Mode 2: Metal Hailide Lamp Mode 3: Both the Filament Lamps and the Metal Hailide Lamp. I wonder if the reason both the filament lamps come on when the metal hailide switch is thrown is that the come on while the metal halide lamp is warming up and then go off. The second switch allows them to stay on while the hailide lamp is either off at all full brightness.
I too thought the filament lamps would go off after the metal halide warmed up to full brightness but after an hour of the lamp being on, they never turned off.
I thought of something else. I wonder if the use of LED bulbs in them is the reason they are not turning off when the metal halide lamp gets bright. My theory behind this is if the turn on/off was done using SCRs, Triacs, or Thyristors, these are designed for AC operation and it requires the AC reverse polarity to turn off. When you put an LED bulb in there, the LEDs rectify the waveform impacting the triac or SCRs ability to turn off. I wonder if putting an incandescent bulb or possibly CFL bulb in one of them would fix the problem, which would allow the current to flow both directions needed for the SCR or Triac switches to turn off the lamps when the halide lamp gets bright.
@@stphinkle The LED lamps are still running on AC. The rectification is done in the lamp power supply. And a half wave rectified load would still turn off on a TRIAC.
But not well and it will stress the ballast. 70W European HPS lamps will work though, as they have ~90V arcs in operation which is close to the 70W halide.
hi, parrot175. i would like to tell you something about standard US high pressure sodium lamps. it's that the real correct way to run standard US high pressure sodium lamps is to run them on metal halide ballasts rated twice the wattage of the bulb, because of 3 reasons. reason 1: standard US high pressure sodium lamps actually require double the wattage they claim to be, and i have done tests to prove it. reason 2: metal halide ballasts will provide enough voltage for the bulb all the time. and reason 3: because they have enough voltage for the bulb, this ensures that the bulb will not cycle. if you don't believe me, you can try it yourself.
I own a MICROSUN table lamp. The one I have will take a standard 70w metal halide bulb. I installed a sylvania 70w power ball bulb and it works fine. I have no reason not to use a standard MH bulb in this MICROSUN lamp.
After watching the whole video, I realized that I jumped the gun. My lamp does have a ceramic socket. Have you ever seen or heard of 315w ceramic metal halide grow light?
I love these weird ‘80s/‘90s lighting systems. I was a kid then, and my father was an electrician and even a lighting salesman for a while. He taught me all about lighting.
Holy smokes, I never knew metal halide existed for an ordinary looking floor lamp. Ironically about 10 years ago when I got my first apartment after college, my mother gave me her halogen torchiere that she purchased in 1991 or '92, which hadn't been used for a long time but I remember how nice it lit up the living room when I was a kid. The lamp was rated for a 500 watt halogen, which was available till 1996 when UL limited the wattage to 300. I knew these halogens used lots of kilowatt hours and got very hot, so I purchased a 70 watt metal halide ballast, bulb and socket, removed the halogen sockets and rigged up the metal halide (open rated), put the ballast, ignitor and capacitor inside an enclosure and wired the lamp cord into it and left on the floor. Anyway, very crude setup but it still works to this day, puts out roughly the same brightness as the 300 watt halogen with less fire danger and easy on the power bill. Much brighter than an LED torchiere but I do miss having the dimmer switch.
@YAKUMO RAN interesting. So I'm not the only one who upgraded a halogen floor lamp to metal halide. When I upgraded the old lamp my mother had when I was a child, I was debating whether to keep the halogen sockets and use a tubular 70 watt metal halide vs a standard medium base E17 shaped bulb. I ended up using the standard E17 bulb because at the time, I was unable to find a tubular metal halide that was open rated, whereas I have an open rated bulb (the type with the thick protective glass around the arc tube) to prevent fire and burns from red hot flying glass in case of explosive lamp failure. Mine is 4200K, approx 5300 lumens, slightly brighter than a 300 watt halogen. A 100 metal halide would be about equivalent to a 500 watt halogen, I'm thinking about doing that once my 70 watt burns out, I would only need to change out the ballast. Or I might skip the ballast altogether and go with LED, if they will have a dimmable LED bulb by then that puts off around 8000 - 9000 lumens, about 500 watt halogen or 100 watt metal halide equivalent
Thank you for the awesome video! These have been around since the late 90s. My first time and only time seeing one of these lamps was in the early 2000s when I was a little kid. A new luxury hotel opened in our area and my parents took us to this hotel for a few nights for fun due to it having a pool, and a inside water park. I was fascinated with HID lights / street light fixtures at this time. When we got to our room I turned on the floor lamp near the desk and I noticed that it had 2 switches. I turned on the second switch and noticed it was some type of HID bulb in the center and it started to warm up. At the time I thought it was some type of mercury vapor bulb due to the blue-ish color on warm up. Ever since then it was a mystery on what this lamp was. I wanted one as a kid, but my parents could not remember the brand after getting back home. Finally after 20-years I figured out it was a MicroSun after doing research on google recently. So glad you posted this video as well. The one that I saw as a kid looked just like this one. Except the two lightbulbs on the side were spiral fluorescent bulbs. They sell conversion kits to convert any lamp to a MicroSun lamp. It is basically just the driver top piece with a lamp cord, all the bulbs, and the attachments to attach to any lamp base. Ordering the MicroSun conversion kit this week!
this is the weirdest but coolest floor lamp I've ever seen. Very cool find.
It could be of older HID ballast design which they were of DC varieties, well nowadays you can find the electronic ballasts even those that operate on 12 Volts DC that puts out AC power output nowadays, especially the computerized car headlight ballasts. In my opinion, open-rated CMH bulbs could be better especially for those CRI snobs who would rather live and die with incandescent bulbs, especially 3,000 kelvins CMH version, they have a rather nice Halogen hue (and CMH bulbs are compatible with electronic ballasts from the start, so they're in a way already pretty efficient).
I found one at the thrift store, but I did not pick it up cause it was missing the halide bulb which are expensive.
Also, DC supposedly helped warm the bulb up faster. Which is why it was at full brightness so quick.
DC is better for arc light
Wow, I've wondered about these for years and it's awesome to finally see someone finally do a detailed review from a lighting enthusiast's perspective.
I have this exact one, the reason they use the “proprietary lamp” and lampholder is to keep consumers from putting standard unprotected 70w lamps in, because without an open rated bulb this fixture becomes a fire hazard in the event of an arc tube rupture. Also forces the customer to purchase only their bulb. I put a e26 socket extension in mine and it runs a regular 70w just fine
I was wondering with one of these whether it would be possible to use standard open-rated 70w MH or CMH lamps in one of these things.
My favorite lamp to run in this is the Sylvania Metalarc pro-tech 70w because it’s 3000K, it’s also open rated which is an added plus. The socket extender that fits is the plastic GE one from Ace hardware. The ceramic ones won’t fit
The deep socket I’m pretty sure is for a safety coated lamp like Shat-R-Shield. It prevents you from putting a non coated lamp in. I’ve never seen this lamp so I can’t be sure but other food-service type fixtures I’ve worked on had this same feature.
It actually has to do with whether the lamp is an open-rated lamp or not, an open-rated lamp will have a shield around the arc tube, so that in the event of a catastrophic failure, the arc tube cannot blow out the outer glass and risk injuring people or property.
Beautiful coated Metal Halide lamp!🙂 And with an Electronic Ballast you definitely cannot see the flickering of the lamp, as in the case of using a Magnetic Ballast with a much lower frequency. I also use MH lamps with an Electronic Ballast, but only tubular types with clear glass and with ceramic technology, but also with quartz... And with a high-quality Electronic Ballast, the light is beautifully stable.
I purchased a Microsun table lamp without the lamps on eBay for $60.00 after I saw this video. It worked, when I tested with a 70W open rated MHPS lamp. I went to the website and purchased two 68W MHPS lamps (3500K and 4000K) and a Microsun Control Module to convert an existing floor lamp. I am using 4000K LED light bulbs in the lamps as well.
Super cool lamp! Absolutely love it!! I think you should do some videos of lightbulbs in lava lamps. Also did you make a video of bubble lights yet? You might have? I might not have looked hard enough to see? Thank you so much again for showing and explaining your neat light bulb collections!
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoy the videos! I don't think I have done any videos on bubble lights yet, I should definitely do some in the future!
Wow this video looks great in hdr!
You can probably put a socket extender with a longer harp if you want to try a 70 watt metal halide bulb
I recently saw one of the 68-watt metal halide replacement bulbs on eBay for $199 plus $10 shipping. Awhile back I found one of these metal halide bulbs at the ReStore that I got for $2. When I got the bulb, I had never seen or heard about Microsun and what they made, but after doing some research on it, I now know what this was about. Microsun now makes LED task light fixtures which have variable color temperatures and dimmable which are somewhat sculptural in design.
Cool I love those lamps I didn't know they made such a thing until I googled it one day and stumbled upon it. I've never even had one but I already love the idea of having a street light in my house but a teeny tiny streetlight.
Wow, great fixture ! It seems rare that MH bulbs are used as interior room/floor lamps in homes. Great video ! 👍🙂
Thank you!
I remembered seeing ads for this thing, and I was looking at getting one for a couple years. I, instead, turned my attention toward building one.
The TRI on the lampholder is Triboro.
It would be great if someone put GE Halarc self ballasted metal halide lamps in the side sockets! (although it wouldn't be a good thing because it would be above the rating of the sockets.
I had completely forgotten about these!
Rad lamp! I kinda want one just for the space heater factor alone. Nice buy on such an expensive piece!
Thank you!
The filament led lamps should go off as the metal halide lamp runs up to full brightness.
Indeed, that is what I thought as well but after trying all settings for one hour each, the filament LEDs never turned off. Maybe that function in this lamp is broken?
I agree. My lamp is about 14 years old. It is showing it’s age. 0:37
I wonder if the three way worked the following:
Mode 1: Fillament Lamps
Mode 2: Metal Hailide Lamp
Mode 3: Both the Filament Lamps and the Metal Hailide Lamp.
I wonder if the reason both the filament lamps come on when the metal hailide switch is thrown is that the come on while the metal halide lamp is warming up and then go off. The second switch allows them to stay on while the hailide lamp is either off at all full brightness.
I too thought the filament lamps would go off after the metal halide warmed up to full brightness but after an hour of the lamp being on, they never turned off.
@@Parrot175 I wonder if a sensor is bad.
I thought of something else. I wonder if the use of LED bulbs in them is the reason they are not turning off when the metal halide lamp gets bright. My theory behind this is if the turn on/off was done using SCRs, Triacs, or Thyristors, these are designed for AC operation and it requires the AC reverse polarity to turn off. When you put an LED bulb in there, the LEDs rectify the waveform impacting the triac or SCRs ability to turn off. I wonder if putting an incandescent bulb or possibly CFL bulb in one of them would fix the problem, which would allow the current to flow both directions needed for the SCR or Triac switches to turn off the lamps when the halide lamp gets bright.
@@stphinkle The LED lamps are still running on AC. The rectification is done in the lamp power supply. And a half wave rectified load would still turn off on a TRIAC.
i think i saw one of these at an antique store on for display one time. but i dont remember much so idk if it actually was one of these.
Nice Flashlight, do you collect them as well?
Does the fan work?
Lol I was thinking of hacking together a metal halide lamp with a ballast. Never thought some company was crazy enough to do this.
Try to fit tubular 70w HPS in it
It will work on a MH ballast
But not well and it will stress the ballast. 70W European HPS lamps will work though, as they have ~90V arcs in operation which is close to the 70W halide.
That is too cool I got a find a restore lol
How long to restrike?
Less Ethan 4 minutes to restrike a lamp warm up time about 90 seconds.
So cool
I want one so baddddddd
hi, parrot175. i would like to tell you something about standard US high pressure sodium lamps. it's that the real correct way to run standard US high pressure sodium lamps is to run them on metal halide ballasts rated twice the wattage of the bulb, because of 3 reasons. reason 1: standard US high pressure sodium lamps actually require double the wattage they claim to be, and i have done tests to prove it. reason 2: metal halide ballasts will provide enough voltage for the bulb all the time. and reason 3: because they have enough voltage for the bulb, this ensures that the bulb will not cycle. if you don't believe me, you can try it yourself.
As much as I enjoy watching HPS bulbs cycle, it's nice to know you can prevent it from happening prematurely.
@@Vinnay94 i don't think they will cycle if they are run that way.
that lamp is cool
I own a MICROSUN table lamp. The one I have will take a standard 70w metal halide bulb. I installed a sylvania 70w power ball bulb and it works fine. I have no reason not to use a standard MH bulb in this MICROSUN lamp.
After watching the whole video, I realized that I jumped the gun. My lamp does have a ceramic socket. Have you ever seen or heard of 315w ceramic metal halide grow light?
I have heard of 315 watt CMH used for grow lights, I've never personally came across any that I can recall.
Very rare