It is ul and cul Entomologists and insect enthusiasts use mercury vapor lights to collect a variety of night-flying insects. 1) Bulb: Replace it with the exact same wattage. Wire the Neutral and Line voltage wires directly to the light fixture tombstones. Not really a filament inside. One would tip the light to get it to start. The ballast regulates the current to the lamps and provides sufficient voltage to start the lamps. How does a ballast work? The main thing I'm wondering is, how would I go about wiring it up? Not sure of the vintage, but the tag inside identifies it as a catalog # 13-1612. This works on mercury vapor, high pressure sodium or metal halide fixtures. Mercury vapor lights use mercury and a ballast as do fluorescent lights, but the similarities end there. One of the more common HID light used for outdoor lighting was a mercury vapor lighting system. Cover the sensor completely with a dark cloth so that no light can get to any part of the sensor. Instead of a near-vacuum, the mercury vapor light has a fill gas pressure close to that of surrounding air, and the gap between the electrodes is much, much smaller. Through research I have found that mercury vapor bulbs can be used in metal halide fixtures but a metal halide bulb cannot be used in a mercury vapor fixture. A mercury vapor lamp uses a small arc tube enclosed within the larger outer globe. The lamps require a ballast to supply the proper voltage and regulate the current to the electrodes. A mercury-vapor lamp is a gas-discharge lamp that uses an electric arc through vaporized mercury to produce light.The arc discharge is generally confined to a small fused quartz arc tube mounted within a larger borosilicate glass bulb. Right around 1900 the mercury arc rectifier was developed, this luminous device was very important for power conversion. What are Mercury Vapor Lights? A Mercury Vapor Yard Light has 3 items that could cause the stated problem. The Designers Edge Twist Lock Dusk to Dawn Photo Cell replaces all brands of photocells for your area light. “Lightning in a Bottle” The mercury vapor lamp works by creating an electric current to mercury vapor within a sealed glass jacket. These early low pressure lamps used a lot of mercury, today's lamps use a tiny amount of mercury. Fluorescent lamps create light by ionizing mercury vapor that is contained in the glass tube. Co-worker says that's hog wash and knows a number of electricians that use MH bulbs in a MV fixture with supposedly good results. 2) Ballast: MUST match the bulb's wattage and while an EXACT replacement (size and mounting means) are not imperative, these two items make doing this job A … I got around to opening the case the other day, and found that it was equipped with a GE R100-series mercury vapor lamp, as well as a two-wire ballast and a three-wire photosensor. The ballast keeps … The ionized mercury vapor emits photons of light. 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