Transforming a Hg Lamp into a powerful UV Light Source

 

Giorgos Lazaridis from PCBheaven has transformed a discharge mercury gas lamp from his workshop into a powerful UV light source. A UV lamp usually generates UV radiations that cause the internal coating of the surface to glow and produce light. If you have any discharge mercury gas lamp out there in your storage room don’t throw it in the garbage since you can follow Giorgos’s steps for changing it into a powerful UV light source.

“It looks like UV to me! I mean, the lamp originally had a very bright cold white light. Now that i removed the cover, the lamp glows a dark violet color. I only had to re-try cure the UV paint and see the results. So, here are the results: Before i break the glass, with 10 minutes of exposure from a distance of about 30cm, the paint did not cure at all. With the glass removed, from a distance of about 10cm, after 10 minutes of exposure, the paint cured completely. As a matter of fact, the board was over exposured under UV and some paint was cured even under the mask. The difference is obvious. This means 2 thing:

  • 1: By removing the glass, the UV radiation is radically increased
  • 2: I have to find out what consequences will have the broken glass on the lifespan of this bulb”.