Manufacturer: Prolite (Distributed by International Lamps Limited in UK)
Model: Daylite Helix 11W
Application: General Lighting/Decorative
Wattage: 11W (21VA - pf=0.51)
Diameter (max): 85mm
Length: 110mm
Tube Length: 240mm (approx)
Bulb/Tube material: Glass, triphosphor (colour 864) internal coating.  Blue-purple plastic coating on outer surface
Colour Temperature: Deep blue coloured.
Peak output wavelength: N/A
Total light output: Unknown.
Rated lifetime: 8000 Hours
Cap: B22
Operating voltage: 240V AC 50Hz
Operating current: 80mA
Warmup/restrike time: 1 minutes/none
Cost (original): Unknown
Value (now): Unknown
Place of manufacture: Unknown
Date of manufacture: Unknown, Possible Date code PA3687 Present on lamp
Lamp Status: Working, presumed unused.
Related Pages: Luxina Helix 11W Red
Notes:  

The initial impression you may get (as I did!) is that this is a cheaply made coloured CFL.  Fact of the matter is that technically you'd be right - it's a very ordinary daylight colour temperature lamp with a very deep blue coloured paint applied none-too-evenly to the outer surface of the tube.

The reason for this however, is that this lamp dates back to before blue CFLs were readily available.  This lamp was intended to produce a cold blue/violet light in a decorative Christmas display - and as such was made-to-order.  This is why I've not been able to track it down in International Lamp's catalogues.  It doesn't exist in there, because it never did - it was custom made, I would imagine as part of quite a large order.

The output from these lamps is a very deep blue (as can be seen in the shot of it lighting my desk below) - the outer coating certainly doing its job very well - assisted greatly by the fact that a daylight temperature lamp was chosen as a starting point - I doubt it would have been anywhere near as effective had a warm white lamp been used.

While technically it's not a brilliant bit of kit - it's a bit of lighting equipment which was originally made to order, rather than an off-the-shelf part, hence is rather rarer and more interesting than it might otherwise be.  Not often you find custom made CFLs.  Of course, this lamp serves little purpose now that coloured CFLs are readily available, and is just an interesting bit of lighting history now.

Luxina and Pro-Lite products seem to bear a striking resemblance to each other, and I reckon that they may well be sourced from the same OEM, though Luxina (See related pages above)  is actually a registered trademark of International Lamps.  I also have Pro-Lite SCR-18W lamps (18W version of this) which are coloured as well - though these make use of a coloured phosphor rather than an external coating like this.  Otherwise the lamps are technically identical - even down to the noisy ballasts.

 

Click Thumbnails for full size images.
 

 

 

 


 

 

This lamp added to the Virtual Display Shelf on the 13th August 2009.


References: Lamp markings only.


Acknowledgements: Many thanks to the website reader who donated this lamp and many others for display!


Updates:

18th August 2009: Corrected error in first paragraph regarding tube and paint colour - originally copied from another page on the site, and not spotted.  Thanks to the reader who pointed that out, feed back is most appreciated.

26th January 2021: Minor changes to page formatting to improve readability on mobile devices.

28th April 2023: Revised Statcounter code to allow for HTTPS operation.


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