Homepage
über SOX Lampen (Natriumdampf - Niederdrucklampen). Wilkommen!
Site de
lampes à vapeur de sodium basse pression. Bienvenue!
Welcome to www.soxlamps.com.
Low-pressure sodium lamps have been used in streetlighting in the United
Kingdom and in various places around the world since the 1930s. Many
areas of the UK still use SOX lighting. With a distinctive deep yellow
light, as in the photo above, these are the most energy-efficient of
any light source. (citations below)
This website was launched in November 2005 and the number of visitors has steadily risen over time. Initially I thought that only people in the UK would be interested in this site, but I have had comments from all over the world!
SOX lanterns are now in decline in nearly all areas in the UK and are being replaced with other lights that give a whiter colour of light. However, SOX lights require less energy and give out more light than white-light sources. They are being replaced in the UK and elsewhere with lamps that have a higher wattage and less light output. Although all types of streetlight have their merits, there is unfortunately some misinformation circulated about SOX streetlighting (in the UK at least), especially in terms of their efficiency. This website indicates the many benefits of this type of light source. Unfortunately, in order to reduce costs in the last few years, it was deemed necessary to cut corners in the manufacture of SOX tubes which subsequently made them less reliable; a good-quality SOX lamp will last for years. Although the manufacturing processes have recently been improved again, the reputation of SOX has suffered somewhat.
Of the SOX lanterns that do get taken down, a fraction of them do go into the hands of enthusiasts and collectors, and there are probably several hundred such collectors in the UK.
* As a technical point: there are other historical types of low-pressure sodium lamp that work exactly the same as SOX, namely SLI and SO. But nearly all low-pressure sodium lamps that are on Britain's roads today are SOX (the term "SOX" has been around since the 1960s) and in order to keep things simple I have just used the term "SOX" in this website!
Citations: The following publications/documents refer
to SOX (low-pressure sodium) lighting as being the most energy-efficient
light source. This holds true in all conditions unless light levels are
extremely low, i.e. well below the level of general illumination normally
experienced in a town or village at night.
"Low-pressure sodium discharge lamps" (J. W. Denneman, Ir.),
IEE PROC., Vol. 128, Pt. A, No. 6, September 1981.
"Master SOX (-E) PSG" data sheet, Philips Lighting (click here
to link to site)
http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/4.html
http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Documents/SO1%20Introduction.htm
(James Hooker, Sylvania)
© Matthew Eagles 2005. Last
modified 1st June 2008.
I currently work for the North East Wales Institute (NEWI), Wrexham, U.K. However, this website is not associated with NEWI or any other organisation.
Next section
What's
New/Site History
This website was created on the Internet on 10th November 2005.
Updates since December 2006:
| Dec 2006 | "Diagnostics"
page added. Link bar reformatted. Change of e-mail address. "Collection"
page now accessible directly from Link bar and has extra content
including Eleco HW846. |
| Jan 2007 | Website statistics page
updated to show all of 2006 (was Jan-Jun 2006 only). |
| Feb 2007 | "Me" page added.
"Advantages" page edited. |
| Apr 2007 | Formatting changes to
entire website - links are now down left-hand side. Weather database
added. |
| Jun 2007 | Minor changes to "index"
and "links" pages. "history", "lamp-posts"
and "software shop" pages added. |
| Jul 2007 | Modifications to "history"
(Wardle photo added), "software shop", "lamp-posts"
(including the addition of the "Fun with Concrete" section)
and "index" pages. |
| Aug 2007 | Modifications to "index", "collection", "models5" and "links" pages. |
| Oct 2007 | "Software shop" page replaced with "The book" page. Extra data added to "colour" page. |
| Dec 2007 | Minor changes to "Advantages" page. |
| Jan 2008 | General review of website content with updates and modifications. |
| Mar 2008 | Lamp added to Collection page. Another link added to Links page. England summary archive data file added to Weather page. |
| Apr 2008 | "80s Computing" pages added – Sinclair ZX81, Acorn Electron & Amstrad CPC6128. |
| May 2008 | Minor modification to Index page. |
| Jun 2008 | Lighting-Up program now at version 3. |