Philips XGC001

The third and final XGC 001 in the Collection (in terms of date acquired) is understandably similar in its overall appearance to the 1985 example, except of course that this earlier version had been used, whereas this bulkhead was an unused, boxed example.

Curiously, the depiction on the box sees the bulkhead positioned upside-down. This would in turn position the lamp cap-down, which is not a recommended burning position for a SOX lamp on account of the possibility that liquefied sodium could trickle down the arc tube and short out the lamp's electrodes.

The contents of the box are displayed above. As well as the bulkhead itself (which you would expect to be contained within the box!), there is a curved aluminium strip (designed to act as a wall bracket for the fitting), a baffle plate (left) for when the fitting is mounted horizontally, a Sylvania-branded lamp and a plate that doesn't appear to serve any purpose to the bulkhead whatsoever - I can only assume that this was intended to be used in something else, but was accidentally packaged with this bulkhead instead.

Releasing the cover reveals a minor change that has occurred to the bulkhead's design since the 1985 example was produced - the plate that obscured the ballast from view is now omitted. Notice that the gear tray is not symmetrical in shape - there is a portion of it set at right angles along the left-hand edge of the fitting; the small indentation located beneath the ballast would be where the baffle plate would fit - the idea being that as this would be positioned at the "top" of the bulkhead, the baffle would restrict the amount of luminous flux being emitted upwards. Of course, there is nothing preventing the bulkhead from being installed along the other horizontal plane.

The identification label that was fitted to this plate has now been relocated to the bulkhead's inside cover. The "C6" code located between the two Philips logos is a date code; this represents March 1986, and means that this bulkhead is around the same age as the GEC 'Nightwatch 18' bulkhead.

The lamp was then fitted - although it is branded as a Sylvania product, its construction suggests that it was actually produced at the now-closed OSRAM-GEC lamp factory in Shaw, near Oldham. The capacitor was produced in late 1985, according to a date stamp.

XGC 001 Bulkheads in the Collection
1985	1986	1991

Installation and Operating Instructions