Light Bulb Question

I was given some light fixtures that I might use in my shop. The bulbs are 250W and they say Sylvania Metalarc on them. I'm guessing that they are metal halide bulbs. Is that right? How can you identify a metal halide bulb, other than the writing on it?

Handle it with your bare hands and then turn it on. If it burns out within 5 minutes, or explodes, it was a halide bulb. Or maybe you could use Google Images to compare it to a picture for identification.

Stan

Sometimes the base has numbers stamped in them, or there may be some other numbers on the glass. I think your guess is right but you could always take it to an electric wholesaler and they can tell you.

Just Google Sylvania Metalarc. Won"t have to drill any deeper. They are metal halide bulbs.

I guess I could have Googled it, but its more fun to ask you guys!
Thanks for the replies.

"If it burns out within 5 minutes, or explodes, it was a halide bulb."

LOL!

Gonna "call you OUT" on that! I'd be more inclined to agree if they were quartz lamps!

Would be a good one for Mythbusters!

Something is seems a little strange here. I put a few metal halide fixtures in one of my buildings because I got them free. Screwed in the bulbs with bare hands. They are not used s lot but have not burned out in ten years. They do
seem to not give as much light as they used to.

I Googled "touching metal halide bulb with bare hands" before I answered tiresntracks original question because I couldn't remember whether the bare hands thing concerned halide bulbs or halogen bulbs. The first thing that came up was from a site where somebody answered another person's question by telling about installing a metal halide bulb with bare hands, and then having it explode five minutes later. I'd had the experience of touching a bulb and then having it burn out in a short time, only I didn't remember it being metal halide---but today had been a long day and I could tell that my memory wasn't going to be doing me any good for quite a while, so I went with the dubious Google information.

On a related issue, did you know that there's a lot of misinformation online? It's shocking.

Stan

"On a related issue, did you know that there's a lot of misinformation online? It's shocking"

Reminds me of that recent TV commercial where a young babe states " They cant put anything on the internet that isn't true" LOL LOL Bonjour

John T

Took me a little while for me to learn about the internet. There used to be a girl on Imus in the morning used to jokinly say "Its got to be true, I read it on the internet".

I remember that commercial lol.

Might want to test one of the fixtures before putting them up. We had those in the shop, freebies, ended up taking them down and replacing them with T8 high bays.

Problem was, for the power they consumed the light level was bad. Also if the power blinked while they were hot, took 15 minutes for them to come back on.

I have never liked those fixtures, think the light is harsh, and the startup is SLOW.

We had some at work that we replaced with with T8s a few years ago. I thought that the light was ok, but it was kind of aggravating that it took so long for them to warm up. I also wonder about the power consumption. We don't have any bulbs left at work, that I can compare these to, that's why I asked how to identify them.
They aren't ideal, but they were free. I don't use my shop that much and I'm usually not in a hurry for the lights to come on, so I think they will work for me.

My view on the internet -

it's like a bad wheat crop, with some grains and a bloody lot of chaff

Efficiency on them is not the best, T-8 fluorescents are better. You should be able to touch them with bare hands and not mess them up most of the time but to be safe use a pair of clean cotton gloves when you handle them. Be very careful about matching bulb & ballast. When the county built the new jail the contractor and project manager didn't do a very good job with the O&M manuals, when bulbs started burning out we relied on our local Electrical Supplier to get us the right bulbs, they didn't. Got a lot of complaints because the light on the sign was always burnt out, also got a lot of complaints because we were spending $500/month on light bulbs. Also got a lot of complaints because they could't see the sign if they drove up from the west (another story). Finally found out what the right bulb was, yes it was $30 more a bulb but lasted most of a year before it burnt out so it was really cheaper than replacing the wrong bulb twice a month. Our lighting consultant was encouraging us to replace some of the High bay metal halides with T-8's, between the rebate and the energy savings payback was between a year and a year and a half.

Actually, the rule is that you can't post information on the internet unless it's true or not. I think that goes for the advertisements, too.

Stan