I love these weird ‘80s/‘90s lighting systems. I was a kid then, and my father was an electrician and even a lighting salesman for a while. He taught me all about lighting.

Holy smokes, I never knew metal halide existed for an ordinary looking floor lamp. Ironically about 10 years ago when I got my first apartment after college, my mother gave me her halogen torchiere that she purchased in 1991 or '92, which hadn't been used for a long time but I remember how nice it lit up the living room when I was a kid. The lamp was rated for a 500 watt halogen, which was available till 1996 when UL limited the wattage to 300. I knew these halogens used lots of kilowatt hours and got very hot, so I purchased a 70 watt metal halide ballast, bulb and socket, removed the halogen sockets and rigged up the metal halide (open rated), put the ballast, ignitor and capacitor inside an enclosure and wired the lamp cord into it and left on the floor. Anyway, very crude setup but it still works to this day, puts out roughly the same brightness as the 300 watt halogen with less fire danger and easy on the power bill. Much brighter than an LED torchiere but I do miss having the dimmer switch.

this is the weirdest but coolest floor lamp I've ever seen. Very cool find.

It could be of older HID ballast design which they were of DC varieties, well nowadays you can find the electronic ballasts even those that operate on 12 Volts DC that puts out AC power output nowadays, especially the computerized car headlight ballasts. In my opinion, open-rated CMH bulbs could be better especially for those CRI snobs who would rather live and die with incandescent bulbs, especially 3,000 kelvins CMH version, they have a rather nice Halogen hue (and CMH bulbs are compatible with electronic ballasts from the start, so they're in a way already pretty efficient).

I found one at the thrift store, but I did not pick it up cause it was missing the halide bulb which are expensive.

Wow, I've wondered about these for years and it's awesome to finally see someone finally do a detailed review from a lighting enthusiast's perspective.

I have this exact one, the reason they use the “proprietary lamp” and lampholder is to keep consumers from putting standard unprotected 70w lamps in, because without an open rated bulb this fixture becomes a fire hazard in the event of an arc tube rupture. Also forces the customer to purchase only their bulb. I put a e26 socket extension in mine and it runs a regular 70w just fine

Beautiful coated Metal Halide lamp!🙂 And with an Electronic Ballast you definitely cannot see the flickering of the lamp, as in the case of using a Magnetic Ballast with a much lower frequency. I also use MH lamps with an Electronic Ballast, but only tubular types with clear glass and with ceramic technology, but also with quartz... And with a high-quality Electronic Ballast, the light is beautifully stable.

Wow this video looks great in hdr!

Wow, great fixture ! It seems rare that MH bulbs are used as interior room/floor lamps in homes. Great video ! 👍🙂

Cool I love those lamps I didn't know they made such a thing until I googled it one day and stumbled upon it. I've never even had one but I already love the idea of having a street light in my house but a teeny tiny streetlight.

I purchased a Microsun table lamp without the lamps on eBay for $60.00 after I saw this video. It worked, when I tested with a 70W open rated MHPS lamp. I went to the website and purchased two 68W MHPS lamps (3500K and 4000K) and a Microsun Control Module to convert an existing floor lamp. I am using 4000K LED light bulbs in the lamps as well.

Rad lamp! I kinda want one just for the space heater factor alone. Nice buy on such an expensive piece!

I had completely forgotten about these!

You can probably put a socket extender with a longer harp if you want to try a 70 watt metal halide bulb

The deep socket I’m pretty sure is for a safety coated lamp like Shat-R-Shield. It prevents you from putting a non coated lamp in. I’ve never seen this lamp so I can’t be sure but other food-service type fixtures I’ve worked on had this same feature.

I remembered seeing ads for this thing, and I was looking at getting one for a couple years. I, instead, turned my attention toward building one.

I recently saw one of the 68-watt metal halide replacement bulbs on eBay for $199 plus $10 shipping. Awhile back I found one of these metal halide bulbs at the ReStore that I got for $2. When I got the bulb, I had never seen or heard about Microsun and what they made, but after doing some research on it, I now know what this was about. Microsun now makes LED task light fixtures which have variable color temperatures and dimmable which are somewhat sculptural in design.

The filament led lamps should go off as the metal halide lamp runs up to full brightness.

Super cool lamp! Absolutely love it!! I think you should do some videos of lightbulbs in lava lamps. Also did you make a video of bubble lights yet? You might have? I might not have looked hard enough to see? Thank you so much again for showing and explaining your neat light bulb collections!