"Ambiance PRO" GLS-Shaped Compact Fluorescent
Since the launch of the first compact fluorescent lamps in the early 1980's, manufacturers have striven to make them smaller and in a style as close as possible to the pear-shaped incandescent lamps they are designed to replace. It was identified at an early stage that consumers were put off the idea of changing to compact fluorescent simply because their shape was unattractive, and most were too long to neatly fit inside incandescent luminaires. In addition the great weight of magnetically-ballasted lamps caused tall standard lamps to be unstable.

In the late 1990's a number of lamps were marketed having a diffusing pear-shaped cover to hide the unsightly internal fluorescent tubes of these lamps. The Philips family of GLS-lookalike lamps is the Ambiance Pro product group. Certainly in the lower wattages, the dimensions allow them to be a reasonably good substitute for GLS types.

This lamp employs a wide-necked glass bulb having an internal white enamel layer fused into the surface. Through this is inserted a compact fluorescent lamp having four parallel sections. It is a roughly folded tube having rounded bends, and is thus necessarily of the amalgam type. Without the usual cut-and-kiss method of tube joining, there is no longer a cold spot for controlling the mercury vapour pressure. A smart feature of this lamp is the combination of the bayonet cap and ballast housing into one moulded piece of plastic. While this might at first appear to be an attractive development, it was in fact not so economical as the standard method of employing a separate aluminium cap. The all-in-one moulding was sold for only a year, and modern lamps of this type have reverted to a separate cap.
Manufacturer: Philips Lighting
Lamp Power: 11 Watts
Lamp Current: 0.047 Amps
Lamp Voltage: 230-240 Volts
Cap Type: B22d/25x26 Polycarbonate
Bulb Finish: Inner: Triphosphor 827 Outer: White enamel
Bulb Type: Inner: 3UT-10 Outer: A-70
Overall Length: 150 mm
Mass: 95 grams
Discharge Length:
Electrodes: Triple coil tungsten Triple carbonate emitter
Atmosphere: Ar,Kr | Hg
Luminous Flux: 600 lm @ 100 hours
Luminous Efficacy: 54.5 lm/W @ 100 hours
Colour Temperature & CRI: CCT: 2700K CRI: Ra 80
Chromaticity Co-ordinates: CCx: 0.462 CCy: 0.412
Burning Position: Universal
Rated Lifetime: 12,000 hours Rated to 70% survival
Warm-up / Re-strike Time: 3 minutes Instant re-strike
Factory: Terneuzen Netherlands
Date of Manufacture: January 1998 Date Code 8A
Original / Present Value: £3.99 (1998)
 
References: 1) Philips Katalog Lampen 2000.