400w UV Blacklight bulbs - best value for money ?

Hi,
Due to relamp 4x 400w UV canons, in experience which lamps have been found to give the best output with proper woods glass ?

Looking at the Sylvania HSW 400 which i would assume to be decent, but havnt tried personally.

I do have a Iwasaki eye MBW400 sitting around which held down a reputation for being rather good & is my yard stick so to speak, but not seen them on sale uk side in sometime.

well, all uv lamps on thomann are about £18 a pop, going to risk it on the sylvanias and see how they fare.. abit of a massive relamping session going on here; hopefully they pack them adiquately :)

from what ive heard and seen, the proper uv leds are really expensive & typically not used in most units.
most are the broader spectrum variety that seem to kick out more in the directly visible spectrum, which reduces contrast ratio of the enviroment vs objects that reactively glow. it is however the only way you can strobe uv that i know of.

A decent mercury blacklight is a sure, cheap, bet for tons of dependable uv. just replace the lamps/clean lamps and fixtures often, the output on them drops drastically due to aging of the woods glass long before the bulb fails to strike (lamps are rated at 500-2000 hours, but may become effectively useless long before the latter). got a lamp in one unit received that when you look at it directly (not advised for extened periods) appears fine, but barely kicks out 20% of the uv that does the actual magic o.o

Also, some of the cheaper uv bulbs appear brighter due to using shitty glass which doesnt filter out as narrowly as it should, resulting in an effect not unlike the leds.. too much visible spectrum emissions ..avoid.


Edited by nineleaves - 19 April 2013 at 2:47pm

thats unfortunate, i shall take the one barely used Iwasaki i have and keep it in a "this is how they used to make them" box ;) :) ..so, next votes folks ?

I remember I used to see a number of the fatter 4ft tubes which when on, you could only tell by looking at the ends where there was a little leakage. Apart from that they were almost completely dark of visible wavelengths.

In the immortal words of Little Fluffy Clouds... "you don't see that anymore"

I thought about getting the sylvania .. they usualy produce a good lamp .. but think i'll give that a miss now ... i did find some eye's in the states, waiting for them to get back to me .. if i get a reply i'll let you guys know, might get a good deal