Westinghouse Electric Corporation

North American Philips Electric Corp.

Vernon L Plagge

Ranbir S Bhalla

Clair M Rively

An arc tube for a high-pressure sodium (HPS) discharge lamp having an extended seal path to reduce leakage therethrough. The extended seal path is provided by a monolithic arc tube body having circular apertures in the ends thereof of a substantially smaller diameter than the diameter of the arc tube body and a skirted end cap having refractory metal tubulation extending centrally therethrough mounted on each end of the arc tube body. A glassy sealing frit is interposed between the entire interior surface of the end cap and that portion of the refractory metal tubulation extending through the circular aperture in the arc tube ends.

Arc tube construction

The lead-in wires of a fluorescent lamp (or similar device) are electrically connected to the base pins by mechanical means instead of welding or soldering the members to each other in the conventional manner during the lamp-basing operation. This is achieved by forming the pins from solid metal or heat-tempered 'stiff' sheet metal, placing the ends of the precut lead wires in a pair of apertures provided in the plastic insulator portion of the base, and then force-fitting the ends of the rigid metal pins into the apertures so that they are firmly anchored in the insulator portion--thus clamping the pins in positive engagement with the captured ends of the lead wires and concurrently completing the base assembly. The length of the exposed portions of the metal pins and the spacing therebetween are controlled to provide pin-terminals that conform with established standards but eliminate the expensive and inefficient soldering or welding operations required to connect the lead wires to the hollow pins of conventional type bases that are preassembled and thus have such hollow pins previously staked or fastened to the base structure.

Growing community of inventors

East Orange, NJ, United States of America

Vernon L Plagge