M57 & Ushio 10,000K bulbs

[Delphinus]

I've gotten two years out these bulbs on M57's. No complaints about longevity.

I've honestly, never in 3+ years of using M57 ballasts, thought, "gee this looks less bright than it ought to be." Seriously .... I find very little difference between my 175's on M57's and my 250 Iwasaki's on M58/H37's.

I know that according to the Iwasaki website the Iwasaki's are "not supposed to run on a combination halide/mercury ballast" and I don't know for sure what they mean by that ... but if they mean don't run them on a ballast that says it is both M58 and H37 then I am running the Iwasaki's on the wrong ballast and maybe that could account for why the 250's seem to be no brighter than the 175's. See CleanAce Specs for more info. Interestingly enough, the ballasts that EYE Lighting put out appear to be these "combo M58/H37" ballasts (See EYE Lighting Ballasts), so who knows. My brain hurts everytime I start thinking about ballasts these days. ops:

However, I'm ordering new 175W/10000K bulbs this week and I'm going to take a look at the mountings, because I'm wondering if the bulbs one buys today are not necessarily the same as the ones I bought (I bought them three years ago). We'll see. Maybe something has changed in this time, because I can honestly say I have never had a problem with these bulbs appearing dim, or flickering, or having problems starting. Nada, zip, nope, I've been very happy with their performance. But maybe the new bulbs won't perform the same on these ballasts which means, crap, I'm going to have to buy new ballasts when these bulbs come. :x