Westinghouse 175watt /C Lifeguard Mercury Vapor Light Bulb

[@daved8436]

Made in May 1967. Great find!

[@VICNASTY1989]

I found an NOS Westy Clear-ender at a Restore awhile back, they had no idea what it was so I paid .99 cents for it, Was the find or a lifetime! These are definitely some of my favorite mercury lamps

[@2StrokeDriptroit]

Partot that IS a phosphor, NOT a silica diffusion coating like in a soft white incandescent. It is the original phosphor used starting in the late 1940’s and is green because it is worn out new /C lamps are more yellow and warm. The /C stands for color improved. This phosphor is not that efficient compared with /DX and /W. Thus /C lamps put out less lumens than clear lamps. The phosphor adds red and yellow when new. Heat destroys this phosphor fast. The “Standard white” is a Westinghouse exclusive and just means it is the standard of color corrected mercury lamps of its era. The first lamps to use this phosphor was the 400 watt JH-1 or with GE the H400 J1 in the late ‘40’s. It was state of the art then. Most /C and /W lamps were pretty well phased out by the early 1980’s fir crappy, harsh /DX. That phosphor is a rare earth and emits mostly red/pink and adds to the lumens over clear lamps. The /W was same way, actually increasing lumens over clear lamps, Westinghouse called these “High output standard white” and they added lumens but had very little color correction over clear lamps, which have the poorest color in mercury lamps. Each makers /W lamps had a different color too! The Westinghouse/Ken-Rad versions were the harshest with a stark, snow white color about 5000K, bright but headache-inducing! These /C lamps have the nicest color, until they degrade to green. The /W lamps green out too, and /DX not as much. My favorite is absolutely the /C. And in the era to about 1979, the 2 ballast codes were used, first is the newer second is the older, hence “39-22” earlier ones would be just “22” But as I said, this IS a color improved PHOSPHOR coated lamp! Cheers!

[@Parrot175]

Thank you for the information as always! Westinghouse’s naming of standard white really confused me on this one, I expected it to say color corrected or something along those lines. The phosphor degradation makes a lot of sense but again added to my confusion lol

[@aspopulvera9130]

the appearance looks like a lamp that you'd normally see on a street lamp

[@TyroneBrown-mz9qi]

I have a NEMA head Joslyn fixture (glass diffuser, open bottom) that came from the pole outside of my house. it has the same exact bulb, however I rebuilt the fixture with a Regent 175w MV ballast while keeping the square Garolite terminal Board. Fixture was removed in about 1999

[@djm5k]

The letters and numbers on base of bulb were indeed for denoting month and year bulb was installed. You would scratch the month letter and the last number of year. However, I have never seen any bulbs that were marked for this. 4:45

[@gregdonato8284]

mercury lifeguard vapor bulb is made so if the bulb breaks for any reason it will go out

[@gmerc-zu6wz]

I believe you're thinking of the safety lamps. Lifeguard was the name Westinghouse gave their MV line. Same as GE used the Bonus Line and Sylvania used the Banner line.

[@bluejay713]

I use to have them lights and went to HPS now you cant find fixtures for the mercury or HPS Now have to go with LED.

[@hansoverbeeke5442]

/C phospor color corrected yes indeed

[@LampLuminance]

Hey you seem to know phosphors is there a difference between (/DX) and (/R) because they look the same on the photos

[@loudspeakertestsmorebyaida3804]

I think I seen mercury vapor lights like these in person at a medical center. One of the rooms had for 100-watt mercury vapor recessed lights. It was very green in person. It looked very cool.

[@gmerc-zu6wz]

I have cases of those NOS. Really love used ones though as no 2 are exactly the same with high hours.

[@worldwidehidcollectorusa3519]

Color improved lamps are really the best!!

[@rs12official]

Your camera has really been making these bulbs look purple in the thumbnails lately!

[@Parrot175]

I’ve noticed this as well, I need to investigate what is happening!

[@paulschuessler8477]

Hi there, here in western Europe that whole phosphor thing was kinda similar. Clear or phosphor coated (Magnesium-Fluoro-Germanate, but they never mentioned that) from the early 50's on, from the late 60's/early 70's clear or coated lamps (then Yttrium-Vanadate, always mentioned). Since the early 80's you could choose for a "DeLuxe" Phosphor (~4300K/CRI ~60 [optimistic]), but also never mentioned what this stuff was. Efficiency was a bit lower than the Standard Yttrium-Vanadate, so i guess it was basically the same but slightly modified. Btw: clear lamps were only common here for spotlights (say from 400W upwards) or large floodlights (from 1kW up). Everything else was usually coated.

[@gregebert5544]

I had one of those many years ago, but wasn't able to fire it up till I obtained a ballast. Got very hot, and was generally useless to me, so it got tossed into the nearest storm drain and went kaboom. Be sure to take a look at it with a UV light source.....SURPRISE...the phosphor doesn't glow white; more of a spooky orange.

[@vintagefancollector1436]

These are coated with a phosphor but it wasn’t a perfect white back then. Diffused MV lamps are not this green-yellow color, they are the exact color of clear but with a white paint coating. /C still means color corrected but Westinghouse, who invented all the phosphors, named each one a unique name.

[@Parrot175]

Thanks for the information!

[@vintagefancollector1436]

@@Parrot175 you’re welcome! I wish i could remember what the phosphor used chemically speaking but I forgot. /C, /W, /Y, /X, /WDX, and /R are all the older phosphors, although /DX I think was released in 1967 or so.

[@johnjunior-70]

For such an old mercury lamp it shines very well!

[@VitaliiKovalev-xb3tq]

Лампа ДРЛ 😊😊😊

[@gregmercil3968]

When it comes to mercury vapor (color corrected or not) and metal halide, no matter what it looks like in person it looks very green on camera. A couple days ago I acquired a very old Cooper Lighting 400w metal halide light fixture, with it’s metal halide bulb as well as a 400w “coated” mercury vapor bulb which also works in this fixture. I couldn’t believe my luck when I finally got my hands on one of these. The fixture and both bulbs came from a cement plant I was doing a job at a couple days ago, and I just happened to notice that they were replacing all these 40+ year old fixtures with LED’s when I was there. As the story goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. 😀

[@robertmailhos8159]

Seems to be a Way to clean up the moguel base to help with electric flow

[@2StrokeDriptroit]

The phosphor is Magnesium Fluro-Getmanate by the way, In /C and Yttrium Vanadate in /DX. The /W I forget.