Goodness, it's been a while since I was on here.
As adam2 said - a box arrived with one of these 60W monsters in towards the end of last week, haven't had a chance to put the page itself together yet, will link to it from here once I have.
Definitely an interesting bit of kit - rather more industrial than the 85W Saverlamp mentioned earlier, being bolted together (literally!), and with little metal braces holding the sections of glass in place - given the sheer amount of it and how thin the tube is - a good idea!
The use of the external amalgam (according to Megaman's website, appears to be some sort of mercury alloy which exists as a vapour at operating temperature, but is a solid at room temperature - haven't really researched that yet) intrigues me - or at least the way it's been implemented on this particular lamp does, apparently residing in two tubes completely external to the actual discharge tube itself, though obviously connected. Apparently this amalgam is completely vapourised during operation - the precise dosing being carefully controlled during manufacture, an interesting solution to the age old problem of precisely controlling vapour pressure - to which there have been a number of inventive solutions over the years, some more elaborate than others - think this definitely gets points for being one of the most elaborate I've seen.
Aside from the slightly odd amalgam arrangements, it's not that technologically unusual, though the very narrow bore tubing is worth a mention - I have to assume that Megaman are using a pretty hardy phosphor combination to deal with the high wall temperatures without suffering from very rapid lumen degredation - and I'd hope that they've got the correct circuitry in place to deal with end of emitter life - otherwise cracked tubes I would think would be quite possible - the wall temperature even in normal use near the electodes is well over 140 degrees celcius (seriously guys, keep fingers well clear!).
There's no denying that this thing produces a lot of light - it does! Probably over the top for general household lighting in most situations - though I can see it being particularly suited to indirectly lighting a room (i.e. ceiling bounce from an uplighter), or in places like art studios or workshops. The real target of the Clusterlite range though appears to be the lower end HID market, where I think it would be well suited to - lacking the requirement of expensive control gear of metal halide setups, and with hugely better effiacy and colour rendering than blended mercury lamps - with a rated lifetime of 15,000 hours, somewhat better lifetime estimates too. Of course, the suitability for use in open fixtures may also be a benifit over some of the smaller metal halide lamps.
My only gripe with this lamp really I think is that as seems to be common to a lot of modern CFLs, is that when first switched on, it really is quite dim. I'm guessing that this is due to the smaller amount of mercury in the tube, thus the initial vapour pressure being lower. When being used in place of metal halide lamps this of course isn't a problem due to their long run up times, but it's still a bit of a pain if you're just wanting to use one in a normal room, especially when you see the claims on the box - the initial result when flicking the switch is a bit disappointing. The plus side of it is that due to the sheer power of the thing, it DOES produce enough light to actually see by from the get go - unlike some low power CFLs I could name!
I didn't initially pick up on the dual ballasts - but that is an interesting idea. Two 30W ballasts could quite conceivably be cheaper to make than one 60W one, and would no doubt result in the tube electrodes having an easier life - I find myself doubting whether you'd be able to get away with this narrow a discharge tube if it were loaded at 60W. I have to wonder whether this is a scheme replicated on the other lamps in this range, which come in 40, 60, 80, 100W forms (and with an external ballast, in 120, 200 and an eye-watering 320W). The obvious bonus (aside from hopefully better reliability) would be that one would think that they would operate independently, therefore giving an indication of a lamp that's in need of attention prior to it failing altogether - the drastic drop in light output hopefully enough to be noticed. I like this particularly for use in places like stairwells where it might be the only light, hence it's rather a safety-critical situation where the built in redundancy is a good thing.
Aaaanyway, I've rambled enough for one evening! Have some photos...
(Excuse the somewhat dodgy colour - I may retake these, my camera doesn't seem to play nicely with the 3400K tube in the light over my workbench...)
Apologies as well if some of these are bit big! They're formatted for my webpage for opening in their own window...so aren't very well suited to forum posting! I'll redirect to the page once it's finished...
