the china made Sylvania lamps are still good though. I have a 100W ED17, 175W clear, 250W /DX and 400W /dx chinese MV Sylvania lamps and they're all just as well made as the american ones. philips mercs are junk and GE's are hit or miss. EYE is outrageously expensive. Sylvania is a good common ground for Mv lamps. Great quality and decent pricing too.
Yeah, the Sylvania mercs are one of the better made merc lamps that are still made. Maybe Eye is better but I haven't really used their mercs so I can't say for sure. I have some 100w DX, 175w (DX and clear) and 400w DX Sylvania mercs and they're pretty good so far.
Of course you can probably still pick up a vintage NOS merc on eBay for about a few dollars more than the Sylvania though.
Feit & Utilitech need to change their etch to say H39KC-175/D rather than /DX....that implies it has the deluxe white phosphor, which these don't! But I DO love these lamps because they are BT-shape and seem made pretty well, and it's a way you can have the unique clear mercury colour in a diffused bulb. As of last week, my local Lowe's didn't have these (yet?)
The way to go for mercury yard/security/street lights is with NOS U.S. made lamps by Westinghouse or Sylvania. They are still usually pretty inexpensive and they will outlast any modern mercury lamp. I have a few EYE lamps of various wattages and they are definitely the best modern mercury lamp made...definitely the best choice out there now if you need a medium base lamp in either clear or /DX.
Yeah they don't have these at my local stores either but I'll get some if/when they do start selling them. People were getting those Feit edison style lamps a couple years ago yet I didn't start seeing them until very recently.
Yeah seems to me I hear the cheapo "Regent", "Caster", etc. lamps last only about 4 or 5 years in nightly service. I think the one in my yardlight (a clear 175w Philips I assume as that's what Electripak lights usually came with but I can't find any markings on it anywhere) is just pre-crappy-Philips-mercs as it's from around '93 (That's when the likely-original Fisher-Pierce PC is dated from) and I've heard the lamps from Philips from 1995-China weren't that great, but I'm wondering if mine even still posesses "Lifeguard" features in an ED28 shape? I know it sure isn't all that used, just whitening at the ends of the arctube as I use it rarely and before that it spent IDK how many years of disuse (Disconnected and abandoned).
Do these Utilitech lamps seem well-made?
Of course you can probably still pick up a vintage NOS merc on eBay for about a few dollars more than the Sylvania though.
The way to go for mercury yard/security/street lights is with NOS U.S. made lamps by Westinghouse or Sylvania. They are still usually pretty inexpensive and they will outlast any modern mercury lamp. I have a few EYE lamps of various wattages and they are definitely the best modern mercury lamp made...definitely the best choice out there now if you need a medium base lamp in either clear or /DX.