63816 Halogen 35 Watt Back Up Light

63816 Halogen 35 Watt Back Up Light at Amazon

It’s not ofttimes that the world of garden lighting is stirred by a new lighting technology. Then two come along in quick succession. Not so long ago LEDs were the Next Big Thing. Now there’s a new kid in town – the MR16 metal halide lamp.

Shrinking metal halide engineering down to the diminutive dimensions of an MR16 lamp is a major technical achievement. The difficultness of doing so is reflected in the very high cost of the lamps, even though it seems reasonable to assume that prices will fall as production ramps up and contest amidst makers begins to bite.

But price aside, what makes the metal halide MR16 lamp noteworthy is it is performance. Currently available in 20 Watt and 35 Watt versions, both develop approximately three times the light output of an equivalent ordinary MR16 halogen lamp. The 20 Watt lamp hence has a light output equivalent to around 60 Watts of usual halogen, and the 35 Watt lamp has a light output equivalent to in regards to 100 Watts of ordinary halogen.

Greener readers, or those who like to keep an eye on their electricity bills, will have already spotted that all that light is formulated for comparatively few Watts. Admittedly, metal halide’s energy consumption does not grab the headlines in rather the same way as the mere 5 Watts of the MR16 LEDs and E27 fluorescent lamps normally used in outdoor lighting, but metal halide is genuinely more energy effective than either in terms of lumens developed per Watt.

So the twin merchandising points of the metal halide MR16 lamp is that it packs a lot of lighting punch into a discreetly sized spotlight, and you will not have to check with your bank each time you wish to switch it on. This was sufficient to persuade at least one garden lighting manufacturer – New Zealand’s Hunza – to harness this noteworthy little lamp with a new range of particularly designed outdoor lights.

The main contemplation was to design lights with space to accommodate the electronic ballast required to operate the metal halide lamp. This meant that these garden lights are inevitably a little more spectacular than spotlights using the traditionalisti MR16 halogen lamp. So their chunky good looks might not have rather the unobtrusive elegance required in littler courtyard-style gardens, but then they are probably too powerful for this kind of space.

Where metal halide outdoor lights come into their own is in more prominent gardens where their more or less larger size doesn’t jar and their high light output opens up new garden lighting possibilities. To give perchance the most uttermost example, Hunza’s Twin Pole Light Metal Halide fitted with two 35 Watt lamps pumps out light equivalent to four 50 Watt usual halogen lamps – sufficient to spotlight even the most significant tree.

These new metal halide garden lights have other advantages, too. They construct a very clean, crisp, cool light with magnificent colour rendition. They come in a choice of three beam widths, so they have the flexibleness to be used for a potpourri of lighting effects. They have a long lamp life of amidst 10,000 and 12,000 hours – which is just as well, giving careful consideration to their cost. And they connect directly to the mains electricity supply with no need for a transformer.

Do metal halide garden lights have any downsides? One is that the 20 Watt and 35 Watt lamps require dissimilar ballasts, so if you buy a metal halide exterior light set up for the 20 Watt lamp, you can’t upgrade to a 35 Watt lamp at a later date. Another is that they take a minute or two to reach full power and require a rest amount of time amongst switching off and switching back on again, so they are not suitable for connecting to a motion sensor.

While it might be an exaggeration to say “the future’s bright, the future’s metal halide”, there seems no doubt that this powerful little lamp is here to stay and destined to take it is place besides halogen, fluorescent and LED technologies. In doing so, it gives clients a new outdoor lighting option to choose from that, uniquely, combines low energy with high light output.