Can You Put A High Pressure Sodium Bulb In A Metal Halide Fixture

High pressure sodium bulbs lamps are an old standby for lighting that s still used today in spite of so much talk of led lights.

Can you put a high pressure sodium bulb in a metal halide fixture.

Whilst you can stick the lamp with the hps sodium gear you will not get the correct colour temperature due to lamp not being at correct operating temperatures and you will drastically shorten the lifespan of it. No metal halide lamps require the electrical operating characteristics that the associated metal halide ballast produces. While upgrading to led provides a lot of benefits high pressure sodium hps lamps still provide some of the most efficient lighting available. The ballast is specific to the type of vapor and wattage.

In principle one must use metal halide ballasts for the corresponding metal halide lamp. In practice we have used sodium vapour ballasts for metal halide lamps without problems for years. A metal halide bulb produces about 65 110 lumens of light per watt while a high pressure sodium bulb produces about 96 150 lumens of light per watt. No metal halide lamps require the electrical operating characteristics that the associated metal halide ballast produces.

A high pressure sodium lamp requires a ballast to operate and a metal halide. Does that mean that i can t or shouldn t replace the original 70 watt hps with say a 100 watt bulb assuming it was the same size and would. In fact they re roughly as efficient as leds in terms of their light output for each watt of energy used. The primary visual difference between them is that metal halide light is white and the light emitted from a high pressure sodium bulb is amber orange.

Their operation is a bit different and they therefore require different ballasts. These bulbs cannot be interchanged without changing their ballast the regulating element in all light bulbs. A high pressure sodium ballast also is equipped with an igniter used to. But the converse is not true.

A high pressure sodium ballast also is equipped with an igniter used to. A high pressure sodium bulb produces light that is reddish yellow while metal halide bulbs produce a much more balanced white light that has more of the visual spectrum. And in your case you need not one but two special fixtures.