New museum items

LRJD 400W (COBR Polam)

This is an unusual Polish metal halide lamp from the R&D Laboratory of POLAM. It was received via a Polish lamp collector without too much information. The suffix 'D' of the name LRJD would normally indicate Daylight colour, however the colour of this lamp is not white. It is about 8000K and slightly greenish. The mechanical construction is almost identical to Osram HQI-T lamps of the 1970s, it is clearly copied from that company's products.

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WLS 400W TD (COBR Polam)

This is a prototype linear high pressure sodium lamp from the small research & development laboratory of the Polish national lamp manufacturer, COBR Polam. It was manufactured around 1997 as part of a small trial series, but did not go into mass production. The dimensions of the lamp and the type of end caps have clearly been designed to allow it to replace 1500W tungsten halogen lamps of the same length. It is unusual for linear high pressure sodium lamps in that the outer jacket is under vacuum, instead of the usual argon filling.

ДНаО 140 (МЭЛЗ)

Illustrated here is an unusual Russian low pressure sodium lamp, manufactured by MELZ in 1966. The discharge tube has a U-shape, and it is assembled within an outer vacuum flask. Normally on European lamps it is possible to remove the discharge tube and replace that while re-using the outer vacuum flask, but on this Russian lamp it has been assembled with a powerful spring which is almost impossible to remove. Clearly it was the intention to replace the whole lamp when the discharge tube failed.

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ФБ 3000 (Стелла)

Not much information is known about this unusual Russian lamp, type FB-3000, presumably 3000 Watts. I believe the manufacturer is Stella of Moscow, who is still producing special Xenon lamps today, however the logo of the modern company is slightly different than what is printed on this lamp. It appears to be an electrodeless lamp for microwave frequency operation. The bulb is made in thick quartz glass and contains a quartz spiral coated with white material, possibly a heat-resistant light reflecting coating.