JPS63138631A - Manufacture of enclosure for high pressure metallic vapor discharge lamp - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To produce a sealing amalgam pellet of the specified weight in uniform form in an easy manner, by charging the heated and fused sealing amalgam for a high pressure metallic vapor discharge lamp in a columnar molding hole and, after being cooled and solidified, discharging the columnar amalgam from this columnar molding aperture. CONSTITUTION:The sodium amalgam ingot mixed in an optimum rate is put in a sodium amalgam fusion vessel 1, and it is heated and fused by a heater 3. A columnar molding aperture 6a of a molding plate 6 is set up in an opposite position to a supply port 2 of this sodium amalgam fusion vessel 1, and this molding aperture 6a is heated, while the fused sodium amalgam 13 is injected and filled up. Next, the molding plate 6 is moved, making the columnar molding aperture 6a move to an amalgam cooling jig combined guide 7, and the fused amalgam 13 is cooled and solidified into columarity. Then, it is extruded out of the columnar molding aperture 6a by a takeout pin 9 being driven to the lower part by a takeout pin driving part 10 and it is dropped downward, thus a columnar sodium amalgam pellet is obtainable. With this constitution, the pellet is formable in fixed columnar form and in such weight being less in variations.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a method for producing amalgam pellets to be added and sealed in arc tubes of high-pressure metal vapor discharge lamps such as high-pressure sodium lamps.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, various methods have been known for adding amalgam to the arc tube of a high-pressure metal vapor discharge lamp such as a high-pressure sodium lamp. For example, when molten sodium amalgam is sealed in an arc tube, the sodium amalgam reacts violently with oxygen and moisture, so the equipment for encapsulating the molten 41M sodium amalgam becomes complicated, and its management is extremely difficult. There is a problem.

Therefore, generally, a method is adopted in which the amalgam is once made into granules and then the amalgam granules are sealed and added into the arc tube. Regarding such a method for producing amalgam, US Pat. No. 4,419,303 discloses a method as shown in FIG. 3. That is, the glass tube 21 is partitioned by a partition wall 22 having pores.
A melting chamber 23 is formed in the upper part of the glass tube 21, and the amalgam 24 is stored in a heated and melted state in the melting chamber 23. By applying vibration to the melting chamber 23 of the glass tube 21 with a vibrator 25, the partition wall The molten amalgam falls in granules through the pores 22 and passes through the cooling zone 26 in the middle of the glass tube 21 to cool and solidify the molten amalgam, and the granular amalgam 28 is placed in the lower storage section 27 of the glass tube 21. What is designed to be stored is disclosed.

Furthermore, conventionally, a method for producing amalgam grains as shown in Fig. 4 has also been used. This manufacturing method involves creating a glass container 33 having a large number of grain recesses 31 and an amalgam ingot accommodating section 32, enclosing an amalgam ingot in the ingot accommodating section 32 of the glass container jlS33, and heating the ingot. and melt.

Next, the glass container 33 is tilted about 1°, etc. to fill the molten amalgam 34 into the recess 3I for grain production, and then the glass container H33 is cooled to solidify the amalgam 34 filled into the recess 31. The grain planting recess 31 is cooled with a cryogenic medium such as liquid nitrogen to separate the molded amalgam grains from the recess 3I, and the separated molded amalgam grains are taken out from the container 33.

4th issue) is a perspective view showing the amalgam grains 35 after molding.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] By the way, in the conventional amalgam granulation means shown in FIG. For example, in general, in a saturated high-pressure sodium lamp, which can only obtain lightweight particles with a small particle size of about 511 Ir at maximum, the amount of sodium amalgam added is 20 - 60 qr, which is quite a large amount, so the granulation method described above is used. When adding amalgam grains into the arc tube, several pieces must be sealed, which is extremely difficult to work with, and the coldest part of the arc tube is the exhaust pipe and electrode support tube made of Nb tube. When amalgam particles are formed and enclosed in the electrode support tube that also serves as the exhaust pipe, there is a problem that the added lightweight amalgam particles scatter into the exhaust system during the arc tube exhaust process and contaminate the exhaust system. .

In addition, when the grains are grown by the means shown in FIG. 4, relatively large amalgam grains can be produced, but since the grain recesses 31 of the glass container 33 are made by hand, The shape of the amalgam grains is non-uniform, and the shape of the amalgam grains is not constant. Therefore, the amount of amalgam added to the arc tube varies, which causes variations in the lamp voltage of the arc tube. was there.

The present invention was made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems in the conventional manufacturing method of encapsulated amalgam pellets for high-pressure metal vapor discharge lamps, and it is possible to easily produce encapsulated amalgam pellets of a uniform shape and a predetermined weight. The purpose is to provide a manufacturing method.

[Means and effects for solving the problems] In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a method of filling a heat-molten encapsulated amalgam for a high-pressure metal vapor discharge lamp into a columnar molding hole of a molding plate, and cooling and solidifying the amalgam. Thereafter, the columnar encapsulated amalgam is discharged from the columnar molding holes to produce amalgam pellets.

By creating amalgam pellets in this way, it is possible to easily obtain amalgam pellets with a uniform columnar shape and a predetermined weight.This allows for automatic feeding because the shape is constant during the process of filling the arc tube into the arc tube, and the weight Since there is little variation in the lamp voltage of the arc tube, it is possible to reduce the variation in the lamp voltage of the arc tube.

〔Example〕

Examples will be described below. FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining an embodiment of the method for producing a high-pressure metal vapor fill material for a lamp according to the present invention. In FIG. A heater 3 for heating is provided on the side wall, and a thermocouple 4 for temperature measurement is further provided on the side wall. A plate guide 5 is arranged below the sodium amalgam melting vessel, and on the plate guide 5,
A molding plate 6 provided with a cylindrical molding hole 6a is arranged so as to be slidable, and the upper surface of the molding plate 6 is slidable without closely contacting the supply port 2 of the sodium amalgam melting container 1. It is composed of

The molding plate 6 is further provided with an amalgam cooling jig/guide 7 arranged apart from the plate guide 5.
The molding plate 6 is slidably supported on the molding plate 6 by a molding plate drive unit 8 provided at the end of the molding plate 6, so that the cylindrical molding hole 6a is connected to both guides 5, 7. It is designed to be reciprocated in the horizontal direction so as to move between the two. Further, a take-out bottle 9 that can be inserted into the cylindrical molding hole 6a of the molding plate 6 is arranged on the upper part of the amalgam cooling jig/guide 7.
The take-out bin 9 is driven in the vertical direction by a take-out bin drive section 10. Note that a thermocouple 11 for measuring the temperature of the guide 7 is attached to the cooling jig/guide 7. The entire apparatus is arranged in a high purity ^r gas atmosphere box 12.

Next, a method for producing sodium amalgam pellets using the apparatus configured as described above will be explained. First, a sodium amalgam ingot, which has been mixed in advance in an optimal ratio, is placed in a sodium amalgam melting container 1. Then, the ingot is heated and melted by a heater 6 disposed on the side wall of the melting container l. At this time, the temperature of the melting container 1 is detected by the thermocouple 4 and controlled to a predetermined temperature. At that time, the plate guide 5 disposed below the sodium amalgam melting container 1 may also be used at a temperature of
be done. Further, the temperature of the amalgam cooling jig/guide 7 is detected by a thermocouple 11, and the temperature is controlled by another unit (not shown) so that the temperature is always below a certain temperature.

When the temperature of the sodium amalgam melting container l and the amalgam cooling jig/guide 7 reaches a predetermined temperature and the standby state is reached, the cylindrical molding hole 6a of the molding plate 6 is filled with sodium amalgam. The molding plate 6 is moved by the molding plate drive unit 8 so that it is placed opposite the supply port 2 of the melting container 1 . At this position, the cylindrical forming hole 6a of the forming plate 6 is heated and filled with molten sodium amalgam 13.

Next, the molding plate 6 is driven by the drive unit 8, and as shown in the second part), the cylindrical molding hole 6a filled with the molten amalgam 13 of the molding plate 6 is moved by the amalgam cooling jig and guide 7. Move to. There, the molten amalgam 13 filled in the cylindrical forming hole 6a is cooled and solidified into a cylindrical shape.

The sodium amalgam that was then cooled and solidified is shown in Figure 2 (
As shown in C1, the cylindrical formed hole 6a is formed by the take-out bin 9 driven downward by the take-out bin drive part 0.
The sodium amalgam pellets 14 are extruded further and fall downward to obtain cylindrical sodium amalgam pellets 14. By repeating the above operations, a large number of sodium amalgam pellets can be efficiently produced.

In the above explanatory diagram, a cylindrical sodium amalgam pellet is shown, but the shape of the amalgam pellet is not limited to a cylindrical shape, but can also be formed into a prismatic shape. Also, depending on the type of high-pressure sodium lamp that uses the sodium amalgam pellets, the dimensions of the cylindrical forming hole 6a, the heating temperature of the sodium amalgam melting container 1, the cooling temperature of the amalgam cooling jig and guide 7, etc. are set as appropriate. It is something that will be done. Further, in the above description, the method for producing sodium amalgam pellets has been described, but it is of course possible to produce other amalgam pellets in the same manner.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above based on the embodiments, according to the present invention, an amalgam pellet is produced by injecting and filling a columnar molding hole with molten amalgam, and then cooling and solidifying it. Amalgam pellets (2) can be made in a constant columnar shape and with less variation in weight. Therefore, in the step of filling the arc tube, only one pellet is required, which makes it easy to handle, and it is possible to reduce variations in the lamp voltage of the arc tube. In addition, since the amalgam pellets can be made into large pellets, the inner surface of the exhaust/electrode support tube made of the Nb tube in which the pellets are sealed will not be contaminated, and therefore the sealing will be completed without causing poor pressurization of the exhaust/electrode tube. be exposed. Additional effects such as prevention of leta staining of the exhaust system due to amalgam scattering can also be obtained.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining the method for manufacturing an enclosure for a high-pressure metal vapor discharge lamp according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the manufacturing process of a pellet by the apparatus shown in FIG. , 3rd
The figure shows an example of the conventional method for producing amalgam grains, and FIG. 4 (B) shows another example of the same conventional method for producing amalgam grains. In the figure, 1 is a sodium amalgam melting container, 2 is a supply port, 3 is a heater, 4 is a thermocouple, 5 is a plate guide, 6 is a molding plate, 6a is a cylindrical molding hole, 7 is an amalgam cooling jig and guide , 8 is a forming plate drive unit, 9
10 is a take-out pin, 10 is a take-out pin drive unit, 11 is a thermocouple, 12 is a high-purity Ar gas atmosphere box, 13 is a molten amalgam, and 14 is an amalgam pellet.

Claims (1)

[Claims] Production of an encapsulation for a high-pressure metal vapor discharge lamp, characterized in that heated and melted encapsulated amalgam for a discharge lamp is filled into a columnar molding hole of a molding plate, and after cooling and solidifying, a columnar encapsulated amalgam pellet is discharged from the columnar molding hole. Law.