Sylvania Metalarc Metal Halide Light Bulbs - Mogul Base

At BuyLightFixtures.com, we want to help all of our customers get the best quality lighting products for the replacement lighting needs. These HID lamps have been used for decades in many different types of light fixtures whether it was used for security or general lighting. And for those of you who still use these in your lighting application, they still make a lot of sense because they are energy-efficient and it is a high-output light source. It’s a high-intensity discharge lamp, and it comes in many different wattages for various types of fixture specification. Unlike high-pressure sodium, metal halide bulbs are white light, and typically have a color temperature that is anywhere from 4000K to 6000K. This is the most common segment of color temperature which is used for most types of general lighting. If you have an application something like hydroponics or something like that, the color temperature can go much higher. But we mainly sell to commercial buildings and contractors for their replacement lighting needs.

Troubleshooting.

Many people buy these as a replacement bulb for parking lots or street lighting, and that may be one of the most significant sections of the marketplace that uses this. Often it’s a good idea to do a large-scale replacement all at once because then it’s going to keep your labor cost lower. Doing a planned change once most of the lights are getting to average rated life makes a lot of sense. These operate on a metal halide ballast that has a core and coil, and igniter and capacitor. The capacitor holds a charge so that when the power is applied, there’s a momentary voltage surge of several thousand volts to start the arc tube. After that happens, the ballast regulates the voltage at a constant amount for the proper operation of the lamp. When you have issues like a metal halide not starting, it could be something as simple as the capacitor, and sometimes that’s all you need to replace. It could be the bulb, it could be the capacitor, or it could be the ballast kit completely. Anyone of those could be the weak link in some problem that you would have. The cheapest thing to take a look at first is just replacing the bulb which is what usually the problem is. If you have something that’s over ten years old and the ballast hasn’t ever been replaced, that could be suspect as well. These have a high color rendering index although these do have the color shift from time to time. If you’ve ever noticed that metal halide overtime start to change color and this is especially noticeable if you have an indoor application. Sometimes in warehouses or factories, people will find that the lights are a different color and are lower in light output than they were. Metal halide can degrade over time to where the light output is not anywhere near as great as it was when it first was put in. That’s why a lot of people will do planned maintenance to make sure that all the lights are changed about when the average rated life occurs. Then you get an all-new lighting system that has the original amount of light when it was first installed. But if you only do spot replacements, you will see some color shift sometimes, and yes, you will see the less light output. That’s when you start to hear complaints from people that are working underneath these lights. These are some of the things to look for when troubleshooting a metal halide system on a fundamental level. There could be other things as well, but this would probably represent about 95 percent of all problems that you would have in replacing any of the components in a metal halide light.

There are a lot of new options for lighting these days, and that includes LED energy-efficient lighting. A lot of people have taken a look at that and compared to whatever watt metal halide they have to a new LED lighting system. LEDs are light emitting diodes that are much more energy-efficient than HID such as these MH bulbs so it might make sense to take a look at what you can save in real dollars. One of the ways you can compare how much you could save in energy is to download our spreadsheet in the left-hand column of our website that is labeled energy-saving calc. This will give you a simple number as to how much you can save on your energy. All you have to do know is some simple data that is easy to acquire. It’s not a complete exhaustive audit that it will give you an idea as to how much you can save in both electrical cost and maintenance. Some of the things you need to know are your kilowatt cost per hour, your existing lighting system and how much wattage it draws and what you might be looking at on our website as an alternative in an LED. What you’ll find is that many people can get great payback especially when they consider things like energy rebate programs from electrical utilities. This can reduce paybacks to anywhere from months to a few years. And sometimes it’s not even essential to have a rebate; if you’re running an operation for 24 hours a day, you will get a good payback. It’s that period that you can recoup the investment of new lighting fixtures or retrofit bulbs. There’s never been a better time to take a look at energy-saving lighting replacing things like metal halide bulbs. Sometimes people don’t even need to use new light fixtures; they don’t want to have that expense. So in that case, what they do is use something like a corn light or a high bay light which can retrofit into the existing sockets of any metal halide fixture. There are some that can operate off the ballast but most of the time people opt for bypassing the ballast with a simple rewire.

Sometimes people call these mercury vapor bulbs, and that would be incorrect. Although the technology is similar to metal halide, this is an advanced form of that type of light. It uses other rare earth metals in the arc tube to increase light output. If you have something like a mercury vapor, it would be a good time to take a look at something else to replace it. Sometimes people will also talk about pulse start metal halide and a ceramic metal halide of which we have a complete variety for those as well. There are some that are used in open light fixtures, but most of them are entirely enclosed because of some of the volatility that metal halide has. There are specific wattages that you have to have enclosed because of that volatility, where on a rare occasion sometimes the arc tube will be destroyed and it causes the rest of the bulb to shatter as well. It’s incredibly rare, but it’s something that was most common in 250-watt metal halide bulbs. If you are replacing those make sure you keep them enclosed in a light fixture that is rated for the metal halide.

If you’re uncertain of which one you have, we can help you find that information and get you the right bulbs or ballast to repair your metal halide system. Please call or email us with any of the information you have and we can answer your questions. We have a lot of experience with this type of lighting, and we know correctly what many people have based on even small bits of information. If you’re looking for a larger quantity of these, make sure you call us for special quantity pricing if you are a building owner/managers, electrical contractors or a retail store.