What are sodium vapour lamps?

morrigan

"A sodium vapor lamp is a gas discharge lamp which uses sodium in an excited state to produce light. There are two varieties of such lamps: low pressure and high pressure." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_vapor_lamp Jan 09 07, 4:39 PM

Baloo55th

A bit like neon lights, but, as morrigan says, using sodium. Sodium is a solid at normal temperatures, so the lights have to warm up before they are any use. The sodium has to vaporise before the light gives full power, unlike neon and similar gas filled which can be made to flash on and off. This is why they can be seen glowing dimly for some time before going bright. As a result of this, they are only any use for long term lighting, such as street lights. No use in the home at all. They are easily recognised by the orange light they give. Some shop signs fall foul of this orange colour - I can remember a shop called CAROUSEL, where the sign maker hadn't taken this into account. The multicoloured sign just happened to have an orange C and an orange L. Very unfortunate. This meant that when the street lights were on, the sign read AROUSE instead, as the orange letters were totally invisible. Jan 09 07, 6:08 PM

RoboDethBanana

sodium vapor lamps are lamps containing vaporized sodium.Inside these lamps, an electic charge is given, thereby exciting the electrons that sodium contains. due to the absorption and release of energy, an atomic emission spectrum is seen. the result is a yellow light. Jan 09 07, 6:31 PM