Nara brand

[CrayolaViolence]

Has anyone used Narva brand lights? They are made in germany and supposedly comparable to ATI and Geisman, yet significantly less. They boast a pretty impressive life expectancy on the lights not dropping much until over 8,000 hours which would be what? 12 hours a day for two years? or close to it? Where it's recommended to change the ATI and geisman every 6 months or so? (from what I've been told but the house partner differs in opinion on that). Anyhow. Would love to know if anyone out there has used these bulbs. Thanks.

 

[mcgyvr]

I've Neva heard of Narva

 

[gus6464]

Narva is an OEM. You know ati and Giesemann don't make the actual bulbs right? Also with programmed start ballasts you don't need to swap out every 6 months.

We swap out bulbs early because of spectrum shift not bulb death. T5 bulbs are meant to last 20k hours. Spectrum shift occurs way before bulb dies.

 

[CrayolaViolence]

Narva is an OEM. You know ati and Giesemann don't make the actual bulbs right? Also with programmed start ballasts you don't need to swap out every 6 months.

We swap out bulbs early because of spectrum shift not bulb death. T5 bulbs are meant to last 20k hours. Spectrum shift occurs way before bulb dies.

Right. But they claim no real drop in output until roughly 8K hours. Which is about 2 years verses the 9 months to a year with the usual.

No I did not know Geisemann and ATI did not make the bulbs. I just assumed you were paying the premium price because they were producing it. So is Narva the OEM for them? Or do you know? Thanks

 

[gus6464]

Right. But they claim no real drop in output until roughly 8K hours. Which is about 2 years verses the 9 months to a year with the usual.

No I did not know Geisemann and ATI did not make the bulbs. I just assumed you were paying the premium price because they were producing it. So is Narva the OEM for them? Or do you know? Thanks

Narva is OEM for Giesemann and KZ and Sylvania is OEM for ATI.

T5 output drop is a myth. We don't keep the bulbs long enough for that to be quantifiable enough. What we have to look out for is the spectrum shift.

Now of course this is assuming you use a programmed start ballast which everyone in our hobby should. I use my T5 for 6 hour bursts. I don't change them out until 18 months. If you were using them for 12 hours I would say swap them once a year.