Forgive the double post, but an edit would not have bumped, and I'm sure new members will take interest in this.
I finally mounted the 55W LPS lamp outside.
Above it is the fixture/ballast for a 175W mercury vapor lamp that we'd been using for years in this location. It seems the ballast finally gave out, or perhaps the controller circuitry on it, as it is no longer operating properly. We tried a new lamp but it fails to properly ignite the arc beyond the start cycle. Bulbs are exceptionally hard to come by but ballasts and fixtures are even harder to find. We junked the old lamp since I knew it was near EOL anyway, but now I have a brand new 175W Hg bulb with no ballast or fixture for it to run on. I'd like to make use of it some day, but for now it is sitting above the LPS lamp. I'd love to take the whole thing down off the garage, but I don't have a ladder that can get me up that high. We have a second unit with probably similar issues (or a broken bulb) on the other end of the property, but it is on an electric company pole about 30ft in the air. No chance of getting on that.
I did score a nice 100W Hg lamp + fixture + ballast some time ago that I will be mounting in my office as a bench light in the near future. Stay tuned for it, perhaps in a new thread about Hg lamps.
I decided to finally give this LPS lamp a new life by putting it to real use, and I am glad I did. Holy crap it is brighter than the 175W Hg lamp ever was (granted the bulb was probably end of life and we never got to see it with a new bulb in)! The throw this lamp has is amazing, it lights up the entire entrance way to our road. No wonder they used them in street lamps. 589nm sure cuts through fog like a knife. It is too bad there isn't a good way to make HPS headlamps for cars, would sure help with poor driving conditions.
... Need one anyway, but this was worth it
