Philips Mercury Fluorescent Blacklight HPW 125W TS

The Philips HPW-TS lamp was introduced in 1980 as an alternative high output version of the HPW-T - which itself was an improvement of the basic HPW model.

The suffix -T is derived from American nomenclature of HID lamps, and indicates that they are safe for use in open fixtures. 'T' lamps automatically switch off if the outer bulb should be broken, eliminating the escape of dangerous shortwave ultraviolet wavelenghts. This is accomplished by placing a small tungsten filament in series with the arc, which operates as an oxygen fuse and burns out to break the current to the arc if it is exposed to air. It is located near the end of the bulb and can be seen in the X-Ray image.

The main feature of this HPW-TS lamp is the addition of a coating of SBE phosphor over the inner surface of the outer bulb. The material is Strontium Tetraborate activated by Europium, and this converts some of the useless shortwave radiation into UV-A wavelengths so as to achieve about 70% stronger blacklight effect than the standard HPW-T and HPW lamps. The broad phosphor radiation peaking around 370nm can be seen clearly in the spectral power distribution chart. Despite this apparntly significant benefit, the lighted photo illustrates that the light source is enlarged from a thin arc to the much larger bulb surface. Many blacklight lamps are used in a polished aluminium reflectors to deliver a powerful beam of radiation, but the increased source size resulted in a much wider beam of lower intensity than from the standard lamps. As such the HPW-TS was confined to the relatively small market of flood-beam or omnidirectional applications. This greatly limited its success, and it was discontinued around the middle of the 1990s.
Manufacturer: NV Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken
Lamp Power: 125 Watts
Lamp Current: 1.15 Amps
Lamp Voltage: 125 Volts
Cap Type: E27/27 Ni plated brass + porcelain
Bulb Type: ED-75 ED23.5 in eighths/inch
Bulb Finish: SrB4O7:Eu2+ phosphor Wood's Glass
Electrodes: Backwound Tungsten Double carbonate emitter
Atmosphere: Inner: Hg|Ar Outer: Nitrogen
Luminous Flux: 0.5 lm
Luminous Efficacy: 0.004 lm/W
UV-A Flux: 5.1 Wrad 320-400 nm
UV-A Efficiency: 4.1 % 320-400 nm
UV-A Irradiance: 600 mW/m² @ 1m distance
Chromaticity Co-ordinates: CCx: 0.20 CCy: 0.05
Rated Lifetime: 2000 hours
Warm-up & Re-strike Time: 3 minutes 3 minutes
Burning Position: Universal
Overall Length: 177 mm
Factory: Turnhout Belgium
Date of Manufacture: 1991 September Date Code: 1J
Original Value: Unknown
References: 1) Philips Brochure, Die Neue HPW 125W TS und Das Schwarzlicht Programm, Germany 1980
2) Philips Catalogue, Studio Theatre & Disco Lamps, UK 1988, p.45
3) Philips Catalogue, Studio Theatre & Disco Lamps, UK 1994, p.52
4) Philips Catalogue, Germany 1990, p124
5) Philips Lighting Correspondence Course, Section 12 UV Radiators, pp.33 & 40
6) Photoelectric measurement