Osram Dulux S 9W Blue
There are however an increasing number of manufacturers starting to supply compact fluorescent lamps in colours which were previously considered "non standard" - but generally have been available in linear fluorescent form from specialist suppliers for a while. These range from coated lamps required for vivid colours, and uncoated lamps with non-white phosphors for more pastel shades.
Osram have launched coloured versions of their Dulux S lamps which are intended for new installations, making use of a separate, permanently fixed ballast assembly. The G23 lamp cap contains a conventional glow-bottle starter and RFI suppression capacitor within the square portion between the pins. This is a sensible feature, as when fluorescent lamps fail, if they are not spotted quickly the starters tend to fail with the contacts welded shut, and the lamp effectively left in "pre-heat" mode permanently - and really, you should be replacing the starter when you replace the tube anyway. This arrangement ensures that with each new lamp a new starter is installed.
The presence of this starter and capacitor of course means that this particular lamp is only suitable for use on conventional magnetic ballasts. A four pin version which lacks the starter and capacitor, hence is suitable for use on electronic ballasts does exist however, which is otherwise identical.
As usual for Osram, the overall manufacturing quality is very good, and the lamp performs well. While the blue lamp produces a fairly saturated, both this and the red versions produce quite a pale coloured light - the so called red one, anyone on the street would describe as pink!
This green lamp produces a very unusual, and really quite hard to describe (and photograph!) coloured light. Not only is it a very unusual "whitish" green colour, but it is also very, very bright. While it may only be a 9W lamp, it's throwing out 800 lumens - and thanks to the non linear way that the human eye perceives different wavelengths, this *appears* brighter than it actually is anyway.
While their unusual colours mean that these lamps are maybe not ideal as a first choice for general lighting, as an accent for a room they really can work very well. My old room used to have either the blue or red version secluded behind the amplifier (which you can see on my desk in the image below) providing a gentle colour wash over the entire wall behind it (unfortunately the addition of the VCR and turntable to this stack means there's no space for it these days). The effect was really quite striking, and I don't doubt that if these lamps were used for example in a hotel conference room or corridor, to simply provide a splash of colour rather than as the main lighting source, the effect would work just as well.
I would be curious to know if a yellow version of this lamp (or any other colour for that matter) exist or have ever existed to compliment the three colours I have here. The main reason for this is that while red, green and blue lamps using a phosphor for the colouration are not unusual, I have only seen one clear lamp similar to this which I would have described as yellow, rather than very warm white.
