Was looking to change the bulb in my outside light on the side of van,I presumed it would just be a bulb but found this ?Seems a bit Ott or am I missing something?
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- Thread starter alecturn1
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Was looking to change the bulb in my outside light on the side of van,I presumed it would just be a bulb but found this ?Seems a bit Ott or am I missing something?
I’d be converting that to an LED, or swapping the light out for something newer, and less power hungry.
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Lenny HB
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- Oct 18, 2007
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Florescent tube with an inverter to drive it, they had them on the Arc. 
You can get LED replacements for the standard strip lights but not for that one.
You would be better to fit a complete new unit.
You can get LED replacements for the standard strip lights but not for that one.
You would be better to fit a complete new unit.
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I agree. If the outer shell doesn't care about what the bulb is underneath, I'd look at ripping out the board so I'm just left with a 12v and ground wire. Then hooking up an LED. You'll get more light for less battery used.Florescent tube with an inverter to drive it, they had them on the Arc.
You can get LED replacements for the standard strip lights but not for that one.
You would be better to fit a complete new unit.
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That’s what I did with internal fittings, just stuck led strip to base of unit
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The lamp is known as an 11watt 4 pin PL lamp. Originally manufactured by Philips Lighting. Now obsolete, you will have done well to find a replacement. Very few fluorescent lamps made these days. I used to work for Philips Lighting OEM division and we took some sunbed tube customers to the Turnhout factory on the Dutch Belgian border. The line that made fluorescent tubes was sooo long that you could see the curvature of the earth when at eye level with the floor, or when using a laser. A truly fascinating experience!
I can’t find any videos of the actual tubes being made, I’ve dropped a link in for those interested in how they work, below.
The process of tube making starts with a huge furnace full of silica and all sorts of other chemicals, including old broken glass, it’s heated to around 1000degrees Celsius and then extracted from the furnace through a hole. As the large blob of glass comes out of the furnace the outer surface cools and solidifies, this becomes a semi liquid semi solid tube as it’s extracted, the inner molten bit, due to physics too complex to explain here, stays near the furnace opening. The tube (wall thickness about 1mm) is drawn through a mandril, a bit like a polo mint, to a series of preset diameters 38 1/8ths of an inch ( normally known as 1.5” in layman’s terms) or 26 (1 inch) or 10 or 5 1/8ths. The tube will be extracted and run for around 1.5km in a dead straight line over thousands of rollers, ( hence the curvature of the earth thing mentioned above!) then it passes through another “polo mint” that has jets of cold air blast out at precisely timed intervals. The thermal shock of the glass locally cooling from around 350-400 C to 10C perfectly stress fractures the glass tube, it’s solid by now, a machine like a mini forklift truck tips the cut to length tube into a metal bin. It heads off to another part of the factory to have phosphor coatings put inside. This can be done with either a spray paint lance inserted into the tube or by a liquid phosphor paint being injected into it as it stands on end and leaving a residue behind on the still very hot tube as the liquid drains out. End caps and mercury vapour are injected into the tube, which is sealed at either end using lots of small gas jets to weld the components together. It was truly fascinating to watch and very highly automated.
Hope I haven’t bored you!
home.howstuffworks.com
Cheers!
Russ
I can’t find any videos of the actual tubes being made, I’ve dropped a link in for those interested in how they work, below.
The process of tube making starts with a huge furnace full of silica and all sorts of other chemicals, including old broken glass, it’s heated to around 1000degrees Celsius and then extracted from the furnace through a hole. As the large blob of glass comes out of the furnace the outer surface cools and solidifies, this becomes a semi liquid semi solid tube as it’s extracted, the inner molten bit, due to physics too complex to explain here, stays near the furnace opening. The tube (wall thickness about 1mm) is drawn through a mandril, a bit like a polo mint, to a series of preset diameters 38 1/8ths of an inch ( normally known as 1.5” in layman’s terms) or 26 (1 inch) or 10 or 5 1/8ths. The tube will be extracted and run for around 1.5km in a dead straight line over thousands of rollers, ( hence the curvature of the earth thing mentioned above!) then it passes through another “polo mint” that has jets of cold air blast out at precisely timed intervals. The thermal shock of the glass locally cooling from around 350-400 C to 10C perfectly stress fractures the glass tube, it’s solid by now, a machine like a mini forklift truck tips the cut to length tube into a metal bin. It heads off to another part of the factory to have phosphor coatings put inside. This can be done with either a spray paint lance inserted into the tube or by a liquid phosphor paint being injected into it as it stands on end and leaving a residue behind on the still very hot tube as the liquid drains out. End caps and mercury vapour are injected into the tube, which is sealed at either end using lots of small gas jets to weld the components together. It was truly fascinating to watch and very highly automated.
Hope I haven’t bored you!
How Fluorescent Lamps Work
You see fluorescent lighting all over the place -- in offices, homes, stores, dressing rooms. But there's a certain mystery to it. Find out what's going on inside these glowing tubes!
home.howstuffworks.com
Cheers!
Russ
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OP
OP
The one in there at moment is made by osram
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Osram, Sylvania, Thorn, you name them, they all made them. Philips started the process by inventing a “PL” lamp, similar to the one you’re replacing, but with a little starter in its base and 2 pins. Then they realised the lamp would be ideal for fire exit signs and made a 4 pin lamp base, this lamp was ideal for running on electronic “hi-frequency” control gear, meaning it had more or less instant startup characteristics, essential for a fire exit sign. Also meant it could run on a battery and/or inverter set up, just like yours. There were a whole variety of sizes, 5w, 7w, 9w, 11w, 13w, then a “PLL” lamp, 4 pins, bigger diameter tubes, 24w, 36w, 40w. All sorts of colour appearances from warm, through cool to daylight, almost all had a colour rendering index (CRI) a measure of how truly they illuminated colours, of around 85, 100 being perfect CRI. Philips encouraged the other manufacturers to manufacture copies, up to a point, they wanted the family of lamps to be accepted by the light fitting manufacturers so that they would have big new markets to exploit over the more traditional tube type lamps.
They also made them using “woods glass” a type of glass that transmits UVC light, normal glass doesn’t transmit it, the mercury vapour “plasma” in a lighting lamp (those above) reacts with the phosphor coatings on the inside of the lamp, making them “fluoresce” , light up. The UVC versions were and are used to kill viruses in hospital Aircon systems, kill algae etc in fish tank pumps as water passes by them. You can tell I loved all this technology! Don’t get me started on infrared lamps!!
Sorry to rattle on!
Cheers!
Russ
They also made them using “woods glass” a type of glass that transmits UVC light, normal glass doesn’t transmit it, the mercury vapour “plasma” in a lighting lamp (those above) reacts with the phosphor coatings on the inside of the lamp, making them “fluoresce” , light up. The UVC versions were and are used to kill viruses in hospital Aircon systems, kill algae etc in fish tank pumps as water passes by them. You can tell I loved all this technology! Don’t get me started on infrared lamps!!
Sorry to rattle on!
Cheers!
Russ
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stuartholmes
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Me too, in principle. Actually I left the original in place, fitted new led beside it & just moved the power supply leads over.
Seemed much the best solution, including upgrade to consider as a free bonus.
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