HPS lights advantages and disadvantages. Are HPS lights are safe?

When the concept of growth lamp appeared, the popularity of high-pressure sodium vapor (HPS) lamp soared. They have been used in the horticulture industry because HPS lamps emit light rich in the red spectrum, which can promote plant growth and flowering. Since then, technology has evolved and there are many other more effective options. But what are they and can you use them in your project? Let’s take a look.

HPS and LPS (low pressure sodium) lamps belong to the gas discharge lamp series. These lamps generate light energy by sending a discharge from an ionized gas (e.g., argon, neon, krypton, etc.). The discharge excites the atoms in the plasma and produces ions that move towards each electrode and interact with other particles. The whole phenomenon produces artificial light energy, whose color depends on the emission spectrum of the gas in the bulb.

As the name suggests, the main difference between HPS and LPS is; The working pressure in the pipe is different between the two. HPS uses vaporized metal sodium and some other elements (such as mercury) to balance the output color temperature. High pressure sodium arc is included in alumina arc tube because sodium arc is highly reactive. On the other hand, LPS is composed of borosilicate glass arc tube.

High pressure sodium grow lamps make it possible for crops to grow indoors, but without appropriate safety precautions, these grow lamps can cause serious damage to human eyes. The damage is often irreversible, so people working in the plantation must take appropriate measures to protect their eyes.

In addition, what is high pressure sodium grow lamp? Sodium vapor lamp is a gas discharge lamp, which uses sodium in the excited state to produce light with a characteristic wavelength close to 589 nm. High pressure sodium grow lamps emit a wider spectrum than low-pressure lamps, but their color rendering is still poor compared with other types of lamps.

So, does high-pressure sodium lamp save energy?

Like metal halides, high pressure sodium lamps are omnidirectional, which wastes light and reduces their efficiency. They lost about 15% of their heat emissions, which increased their inefficiency. The cost of HPS lamps varies with specific lamps, but it is cheaper than LED lamps.

People have discussed the use of high-voltage LED grow lamps (“high-voltage LED bulbs”), but so far, there are still many kinds of high-voltage LED lamps. However, LEDs can better control their light, which is why low wattage LEDs can replace high wattage high-pressure sodium bulbs.

Advantages of HPS lamp

In fact, HPS lamps have many advantages, which is why they are widely used in specific industries.

1 – in terms of efficiency, HPS lamp is superior to incandescent lamp and mercury lamp. The efficiency of these lamps is about seven times that of ordinary incandescent lamps and three times that of metal halide lamps or mercury vapor lamps.

2 – in terms of efficacy (the efficiency of the lamp to convert electricity into light useful for photosynthesis), HPS emits a wide spectrum of output light, most of which are useless to plants. On the contrary, in this sense, LEDs are much more efficient because their output can be optimized to emit only useful wavelengths. The average warm-up time of most HPS lamps is about 4-6 minutes. Compared with mercury halide and incandescent lamps, HPS takes much less time to reach its peak output state.

The 3-hps lamp has a good and long life of 24000 hours.

4 – these lamps have excellent lumen retention. They can easily maintain brightness for 90% of their life cycle and still emit 80% light at the end of the life cycle.

Disadvantages of HPS lamp

1 – in terms of color rendering, HPS lamps are surpassed by many other technologies.

2 – preheating time. After the arc is ignited, the metal salt evaporates. The output light will not reach its peak intensity until all the salt evaporates. The light gradually changes from red to unique yellow.

3 – the world is now eradicating the use of toxic and harmful materials and striving to achieve a green future. HPS contains a small amount of mercury, which will cause harm to the environment if released from the pipe. For this reason, you cannot handle HPS lights.

4-HPS lamp projects light in the 360 ° direction, which means that about 15% of the light is wasted, making the solution inefficient.

5 – HPS lamp is easy to flash and damage. This increases maintenance costs and total costs.

6-hps lamp needs “ballast” to operate stably and provide constant current for the lamp. The ballast may be damaged by continuous process and needs to be replaced immediately.

High pressure sodium bulbs are used in indoor environments where parking lots, street lights and cri are not major problems.

HPS lamps can provide high-intensity lighting, which is why they are widely used in warehouses, industrial areas and shipping areas. Fixtures are suspended from the ground (about 15 feet or higher).

Yellow limits the application of HPS lights to street lights and outdoor projects.

Another thing to consider is the wattage of the HPS lamp, because the output lumen depends on the wattage. The wattage depends on the supply voltage, ballast and fixture design. HPS lamps are still widely used, although they are now slowly being replaced by LED lighting.