Interesting, the arc tube looks more like the Sylvania/Osram Powerball than the typical Philips MasterColour squared-off arc tube. Does it have a solid state ignitor in it or something? Or is that wire coil actually a starting aid?

I was wondering would I be able to use a pulse start 400 watt MH lamp on a standard M59 probe start ballast?

Some of them apparently! I have a few Pulse start MHs...not all of them do start in standard probe start ballast, but some do!

Yea I tried it but no luck.

@Alain (vaporeyes), this lamp has no starting aid, instead it has a neon-argon penning mixture to lower the starting voltage to the level provided by standard MH ballasts. Philips, BTW, now uses the powerball style arc tubes in some types of CMH lamps, such as this and the Mastercolor Elite lamp.

@Jace did you cheat by using a BBQ igniter to start your PSMH lamps?

Hi Silverliner14B, I got 3 of these lamps myself (from the same ebay seller most likely). I'm using a Cooper CWA M58/H37 HPF ballast with no starter. All three 208w CMH lamps ignite after 3 to 4 secs but soon fail and they never re-start. What do you mean by it eventually broke in and starts better?.. Any advice? Thanks.

Hi lights*plus, I had the same problem with this lamp. I waited a few minutes with the power on and got the lamp to fire up with a BBQ ignitor, sometimes it took several tries but usually this time the lamp finally fires up and reaches full brightness. It took several rounds of lamp operation for it to finally fire up and warm to full brightness by its own. Hope this helps.

Talk about a picky lamp! Lol

This seems to be a problem with this specific batch, my 330w All-Start CMH lamp didn't have this problem.

If it still fails to restart, just put it in a fixture with a starter and let it warm up a little bit (not to full brightness or not hot) and quickly put it back into the MV fixture

It worked! Lit my Philips 205w AllStart with a 350w pulse-start ballast. Did it 3 times for just 3 minutes each. Let it cool thoroughly. Had no problem lighting it with the 250w M58/H37 probe start ballast. Very interesting spectra. I compared it with a normal M-H lamp.

It could have something to do with the gas mix. Sometimes you need to "break in" the mix if the proportions of the different gases are not exactly correct.

@Lights*plus glad you got it working! Yep they indeed have an interesting spectrum.

@Vince maybe you should become a lamp engineer! You seem quite acknowledgeable.

Quote from Silverliner14B:
@Alain (vaporeyes), this lamp has no starting aid, instead it has a neon-argon penning mixture to lower the starting voltage to the level provided by standard MH ballasts. Philips, BTW, now uses the powerball style arc tubes in some types of CMH lamps, such as this and the Mastercolor Elite lamp.
End of Quote.

Dave, the neon-argon penning mixture is the same buffer gas as in our European Philips HPI familiy of quartz MH lamps which lowers the striking voltage, so only a 750V parallel ignitor is required (HPI-T/BU). The HPI-BUS have both the neon-argon penning and a starting probe, meaning that it can be operated directly from a mercury choke with no ignitor.
I saw several times several european Philips HPI-BUS/BU on transparent highbays in Delta woman clothing shop in Castra mall, Haifa and indeed they glowed red during ignition for 1/2 sec, before the light turned 3000K because the glowing electrodes.
Edit: It will be interesting to see a video of how the lamp switched on and run-up if it have a neon-argon penning like the Philips HPI.

Interesting...is this an energy saving alternative to a regular probe-start lamp? Would the 330w replace a 400w?

Yep thats correct and yes 330w replaces 400w MH.

Thanks