ARC Projector Lamps, How They Work...

Projector lamps have been around for a while now, but the high-pressure ARC lamps made famous via Philips and their patented UHP projector lamp technology, have only been around for about 6-8 years. The UHP projector lamp is basically a glorified metal halide lamp; one could say that modern day UHP lamps are metal halide lamps on steroids.

In the never ending quest to make projector pictures brighter and less vulnerable to the old adage “be sure you’re able to control your lighting settings” projector lamps have made leaps and bound over the past five years or so. Not only are they brighter, but there has been an encouraging trend in the projector lamp world towards longer lamp life’s. Lower wattage lamps are now able to confidently display the ”Lasts 6000 hours” sticker proudly and prominently - in fact, all of myprojectorlamps.com’s 120W projector lamps last 6000 hours!

So it’s great that projector lamps are lasting longer and providing higher and higher ANSI lumens rates without melting projectors or bursting and lighting houses across the world ablaze; but how do they work?

Projector lamps like any ARC lamp function by creating a spark that jumps or “arcs” across a gap between two carbon rod electrodes. After this process is initiated and almost instantaneously the two rods touch and then gradually move farther away from each other. When this happens, the lamp is said to be “struck” and the current that moves between the two rods appears as a bright ionized ”arc”.

This technology was first employed in a rudimentary form in the early 19th century, we’re talking before the war of 1812, by a man named Humphry Davy. Later the lamps were updated and improved and eventually the Yablochkov Candle was commonly seen throughout 1870’s Europe. Eventually the Arc technology was bumped out by filament technology, which is found in just about every household light bulb today. The Arc technology did hold on however, and is in obvious use today as the demand for projector lamps increases insatiably.

Today’s projector lamps of course, are a lot more complicated and intimately detailed objects. One major difference is that they contain mercury vapor that glows a brilliant white when fired. And because modern projector lamps contain mercury, you should always be careful to dispose of them in environmentally friendly ways. Until next time – take it easy.