# Low pressure sodium lamp



## Lelander (May 24, 2015)

I just spent a lot of time composing a much longer message only to find that I was no longer logged in, and lost the whole thing. Briefly, I'm interested in setting up a 35-watt LPS-SOX lamp for the specific purpose of working with UV resists. Any advice?

And I'm not sure either message went out. I'm finding this forum very difficult to use.


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## Lelander (May 25, 2015)

I'll try again with a longer message, and see if I can avoid tripping over the forum's security measures. I'd like to set up a 35 watt Philips LPS-SOX lamp (#32781-7) as a safe light to use when working with UV photo resists for etching copper and silver. With its two-line spectrum far from the UV region, a low-pressure sodium lamp is uniquely suited to this purpose. I think I can get a lamp from 1000Bulbs.com, but finding a ballast for it is a different matter. About ten years ago a member of this forum wrote that a magnetic fluorescent instant start ballast will work, but I have no idea how to select one -- I'm not an electronics engineer, or anything close to it. I've had no luck locating one of the ballasts specified for this lamp, ANSI L70.

Any helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


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## FRITZHID (Jul 13, 2015)

Well.... You're in a foreign territory for most people. Lps/Sox lamps are very obscure and rarely used these days. In fact, other than some very old street lamps in a city I grew up in, I've only seen one in use, at a local flea market.
My suggestion would be to start with a small unit and work your way up till the lamp functions within its parameters. That's what most of us diyers would do.


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## FRITZHID (Jul 13, 2015)

If you're interested, the one I saw is probably still available and I can get you details on it. I know it's for sale and functioning as a whole unit. Plug and play as it were.


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## yuandrew (Sep 10, 2015)

I have some 18 watt and 35 watt low pressure sodium lamps and have ran them on electronic ballasts meant for fluorescent lamps and also the electronics from screw based CFLs*. For the 35 watt, you could try an instant-start F32T8 fluorescent ballast like the Advance ICN-2P32-SC

*I have a whole bunch of CFLs that a Chinese supermarket would give away whenever one purchases a certain amount of groceries from them. Pried some of them apart to use the electronics for projects or components.


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