Low Pressure Mercury Vapour Lamp (Fluorescent Tube):

A fluorescent lamp is a low weight mercury vapour lamp that uses fluorescence to deliver visible light. An
electric current in the gas energizes mercury vapor which delivers ultraviolet radiation through discharge
process and the ultraviolet radiation causes the phosphor coating of the lamp inner wall to radiate visible light.
How does a Fluorescent Lamp work?
• When we switch ON the supply, full voltage comes across the lamp and as well as across the starter
through the ballast. But at that instant, no discharge happens, i.e., no lumen output from the lamp.
• At that full voltage first the glow discharge is established in the starter. This is because the electrodes
gap in the neon bulb of starter is much lesser than that of the fluorescent lamp.
• Then gas inside the starter gets ionized due to this full voltage and heats the bimetallic strip. That
causes to bend the bimetallic strip to connect to the fixed contact. Now, current starts flowing through
the starter. Although the ionization potential of the neon is more than that of the argon but still due to
small electrode gap, a high voltage gradient appears in the neon bulb and hence glow discharge gets
started first in the starter.
• As soon as the current starts flowing through the touched contacts of the neon bulb of the starter, the
voltage across the neon bulb gets reduced since the current, causes a voltage drop across the inductor
(ballast). At reduced or no voltage across the starter, there will be no more gas discharge taking place
and hence the bimetallic strip gets cool and breaks away from the fixed contact. At the time of breaking
of the contacts in the starter, the current gets interrupted, and hence at that moment, a large voltage
surge comes across the inductor (ballast).
• This high valued surge voltage comes across the fluorescent lamp (tube light) electrodes and strikes
penning mixture (mixture argon gas and mercury vapor).
• Gas discharge process gets started and continues and hence current again gets a path to flow through the
fluorescent lamp tube (tube light) itself. During discharging of penning gas mixture
the resistance offered by the gas is lower than the resistance of starter.
• The discharge of mercury atoms produces ultraviolet radiation which in turn excites the phosphor
powder coating to radiate visible light.
• Starter gets inactive during glowing of fluorescent lamp (tube light) because no current passes through
the starter in that condition.
Sodium Vapour Lamp:

A Low-Pressure Sodium Vapor lamp (or LPSV lamp) is termed as a “miscellaneous discharge lamp” as it
possesses some characteristics of High-Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps as well as it resembles fluorescent
lamps in other areas.
Basically, an LPSV lamp is a gas discharge lamp that uses sodium in an excited state to produce light. A typical
LPSV lamp is shown in the figure below.

The constructional features of the LPSV lamp are given below:

1. The outer envelope is made from borosilicate glass. The inner surface of the outer glass case is coated
with indium oxide. This heat-reflective coating of indium oxide allows visible light to pass but reflects
infra-red radiation back inside the tube as a result of which both light output and temperature inside the
tube increases.
2. The arc tube of the LPSV lamp is made of glass and bent in the form of a U-shape in order to increase
the length of the arc. The arc tube is supported at both ends. The arc tube contains a mixture of metallic
sodium and inert gases argon and neon.

The operation is explained step by step in details below:

At starting, electric discharge is to be established through neon gas till sodium gets vaporized and for this
voltage of about 410 V is required. However, for running purpose, voltage of about 165 V will be sufficient.
Supply to the lamp is given through a leak transformer which has high leakage reactance. As soon as the
discharge through the tube starts, heavy voltage drop takes place in the transformer so that required operating
voltage is automatically impressed across electrodes. At first, for about 10-15 minutes, discharge through the
lamp will be pink and then as sodium vaporizes, it will turn to monochromatic yellow. The power factor (P.F)
of the lamp is 0.3 lagging and therefore Capacitor power factor correction is very essential.
For proper operation of LPSV lamp, typical pressure is about .005 torr and a temperature range between 250° to
270°.
High Pressure Mercury Vapour Lamp:

Construction:
1. This lamp consists of two tubes. The inner tube and outer tube. The inner discharge tube is made of
hard glass. It is contained in an evacuated outer tube, which maintains high temperature of the inner
discharge tube.
2. Inner tube contains neon or argon gas under low pressure, two main electrodes in the form of oxide
coated coils and starting or auxiliary electrode. The starting or auxiliary electrode is connected
through a high resistance R (about 50 KΩ) to the main electrode situated at the outer end of the
tube.
3. Choke is used as usual with discharge lamps to limit the discharge current. The power factor of the
lamp is 0.5 lagging and therefore Capacitor is used to improve power factor of the supply taken.

Operation:
When the supply is given, electric field is setup between the starting electrode and the adjacent main electrode.
This causes discharge first to take place between them through current limiting carbon resistance. This
discharge through argon gas produces enough heat to vaporize mercury drops in the inner tube. To vaporize al
mercury and for the lamp to reach full brilliance requires 4 to 8 minutes depending upon the design. Once
discharge tube is filled with mercury vapour a low resistance path is created for current to flow between the
main electrodes. The arc then shifts to main electrodes. When this occurs the starting electrode and its high
resistance path automatically becomes inactive.