Clear Philips PLE 23W C Pro demo lamp

This PLE 23W Pro lamp was specially made without its fluorescent coating in order to investigate the process of mercury diffusion during the lamp's run up. Like in most compact fluorescent lamps, the mercury pressure is managed by amalgams, which enables an efficient operation at high burner temperature. Although effective, this technology resulted also in particularly long run-up times as the lamp has to reach a sufficiently high temperature for an optimal amalgam operation. This issue gave CFL a bad name and studies were thus carried out to quantify and mitigate that problem, what the lamp shown here was made for. Shown here right after ignition, the mercury vapor is localized primarily around the electrodes, where the amalgams are located. This lamp was assembled at Philips's central lighting labs in Eindhoven from parts manufactured in Roosendaal (burner) and Teurnezen (electronics and housing), all in the Netherlands.