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Tanning lamps (or sometimes called tanning bulbs or tanning tubes in some parts of Europe) are the part of a tanning bed, booth or other tanning device that actually produce the ultraviolet. more...

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While there are literally hundreds of different tanning lamps, they can usually be classified in two basic groups: low pressure and high pressure. Within the industry, it is common to call high pressure units \"bulbs\" and low pressure units \"lamps\", although there are many exceptions and not everyone follows this example. This is likely due to the size of the unit, rather than the type. Both types require an oxygen free environment inside the lamp.

Virtually every tanning lamp or bulb requires a ballast to provide power. While an incandescent lamp, like a typical household light bulb uses a resistor filament to restrict the flow of power inside the lamp, tanning lamps do not. They are plasma devices, like a neon sign, and will flow as much power as you make available to them, even to the point of self destruction. Thus a ballast is needed to regulate the amount of electricity that flows to them.

The primary purpose of the tanning lamp is to create a suntan by other means than exposure to the sun. This is accomplished in a tanning bed, tanning booth, tanning canopy or free standing single bulb tanning unit. The quality of the tan (or how similar it is to a tan from the natural sun) depends upon the spectrum of the light that is generated from the lamps. Most tanning lamps produce much more UV than the sun on a typical day. This gives the user a faster base tan, but one that fades faster and offers less protection from the sun than a natural tan.

High Pressure Bulbs

High pressure bulbs are 3 to 5 inches long and typically powered by a ballast with 250 to 2000 watts. The most common is the 400 watt variety that is used as an added face tanner in the tradional tanning bed. High pressure lamps use quartz glass, and as such do not filter UVC. Because UVC can be deadly, a special filter glass (usually purple) is required that will filter out the UVC and UVB. The goal with high pressure tanning bulbs is to produce an ultra high amount of UVA only. Using a tanning bed or other device with high pressure bulbs but no filter glass is extremely dangerous and should never be done. UVC is used in germicidal lamps and for water purification but damages human skin.

The contents of a high pressure lamp are inert gas (such as argon) and mercury. There are no phosphors used, and the mercury is clearly visible if it is not in a gaseous state. Care must be taken when handling the high pressure bulb (and any other quartz bulb) and you should never touch it with your fingers. Leaving even a small amount of oil from your hands will cause premature failure of the bulb, and can even cause it to break, due to the extreme heat generated at normal use, which can cause the oil deposited on the bulb to boil. Because the bulb contains mercury, great care should be used if a bulb is broken, to prevent accidentally exposing yourself to the toxic mercury. Most commercial replacement bulbs come with a special pocket wipe, usually containing alcohol, to clean the bulb in case it is accidentally touched when installing.

Read more at Wikipedia.org