Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave-ROR
Updated my post with some more. Feel free to go back and read it. 
Automotive lighting is clearly different from your industry in the way it's applied. I wouldn't even start to say anything about your industries application as I have no experience there.
And if you want evidence of them being able to reignite instantly I can go shoot a video, I have a few balasts and bulbs sitting on the shelf in the garage. |
Noted, apparenty hot-restrike ballasts are far more common in the automotive industry. I can understand why, however since they use much higher ignite voltage, they shorten lamp life even further. It's the difference of using 15,000 volts to strike the lamp or 50,000 volts, what happens when you strike the lamp if you were to watch it under a microscope you would see pieces of the electrodes be blasted away from the igniting arc, the higher the voltage, the more damage is done. I highly recommend one lets the lamp cool before re-igniting the arc if at all possible.
In the entertainment business, we use 700 watt to 1500 watt lamps (sometimes even up to 10,000 watts) with 700 or less hour lifespans...each strike takes about an hour of lamp life away so usually we strike all the lamps at the beginning of the day and leave them running for 12+ hours until the show is over...replacing a $400 lamp is not fun, especially 80ft in the air over a stage.