Well David and I met up yesterday, more of that elsewhere, but we did power up all of his SLI lamps - with 1 going to Stelmer and another to Mazeteam. Good news is that they all work OK and all start violet so are "later" tubes. So it seems that for SLI lamps how the colour of the internal coating looks can't be used as a reliable indicator to the age of the tube and it is best to use the date stamp. In our cases it looks like that of the various different dates for 1 code, ours are the newest dates.

Lampco still have 190 200W SLI lamps in stock.

The issue with these lamps is that the proper SLI ballasts are not available for them. However Colin Grimes tells me that a 160W sunbed ballast will operate these lamps. According to Lamptech, the 200W SLI needs 145V at 1.55A.

I have just found on Ebay a suitable 160W sunbed ballast which does indeed operate at 1.5A. The user has 245 in stock!!!

Might be the time to purchase some of these old relics. (I have already and now have a way of running them   )

Could be something i'd consider doing in the future. Am going to get a couple of them ballasts though.

Yeah, I'm thinking about it myself. And the seller is in Darlington, so once I have a working bike then I can just get the train up to Darlo and cycle to the seller - load a couple in my bag and be on my way!

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This could be very soon! Mazeteam, PM sent.

Bought a couple of those ballasts recently (and as a lamp collector, couldn`t resist a couple of the 160W tubes as well, as much as I hate the whole idea of sunbeds), and received them earlier in the week.

I can confirm that they do indeed run the GEC 200W SLI/H lamps from the Lamp Co suitably well, at least for brief tests. Readings at full power are about 2.15A which seems a bit high, but the voltage across the tube is around 89-90v giving about 190-194W, so not far short of the 200W rating. Ballast doesn`t appear to lose much as it comes in at dead on 200W from the mains supply, although admittedly without a PFC capacitor it`s over 500VA overall. Ignition was achieved by using a 90w SOX ignitor, all I had conveniently to hand but it seemed fine. Perhaps one made for up to 180W lamps would be more appropriate, but it did perfectly well for a brief demonstration.







I feel a new signature line coming on....

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Excellent! My ballasts are stuck somewhere in the post...

That would make a great avatar image (or even a POTM)...

I may end up going to darlington and getting a couple of ballasts myself!

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A big thankyou to David for getting these lamps.


Just powered mine up and it's resting ontop of my monitor, warming up for the first time ever as I type this. I love the  Lilac and Blue colours at startup.

Well my ballasts for the 200W lamps have finally arrived, so I can now try out my latest ones sometime as well.