"NSM" wrote in message news:dRszd.9681$Y72.7148@edtnps91...

"James Sweet" wrote in message
news:Hwqzd.15673$rL3.9038@trnddc03...

| This is a mercury lamp, they don't use igniters. Only HPS, modern
| pulse-start metal halide and some modern LPS lights use an igniter.
Mercury
| vapor lamps are all probe-start and rely only on sufficient open circuit
| voltage from the ballast.
|
| Also his lamp is igniting so even if it did use an igniter that's not
the
| problem, if the igniter fails in a pulse-start fixture the lamp will
never
| light.

He may have mis-identified the lamp type.



Entirely possible, though that still doesn't change the fact that the
igniter is apparently not the problem in this particular case.

That is a good point though, the two common types of sodium lights are
pretty distinctive, but people very regularly misidentify metal halide
lights as mercury. A probe start MH lamp will usually light up fine on a
mercury ballast but fail within a couple months. The other way around is
acceptable for 175W and larger sizes though.