Martin Professional™ are keen to ensure that customers obtain the best possible performance from Martin™ products while at the same time keeping operating costs and environmental impact to a minimum. We are therefore issuing the following guidelines to help customers manage discharge lighting as economically as possible. 

Discharge lighting fixtures from Martin™ are built to withstand a reasonable number of mains power on/off cycles with no detrimental effect on the fixture, its performance or its lifetime. 

If light output from fixtures is not required for a period of one hour or more, it is generally a good idea to cut lamp power from the control desk. 

For longer periods when fixtures will not be in use, it is both safe and normal to cut mains power to the fixture in order to reduce power consumption. When you do this, first cut power to the lamp from your control desk but leave power applied to the fixture so that the thermostatically regulated cooling systems can continue to stabilize temperatures. After 5 minutes you can then cut power to the fixture completely. 

During normal operation, all Martin Professional™ fixtures fitted with an electronic ballast will automatically reduce lamp power when the shutter has been closed for 10 seconds. To avoid unnecessary power consumption, you should therefore ensure that all shutters are fully closed during blackouts. 

Most double-ended lamps are specified to 600 ignitions during their lifetime. Using less than 600 ignitions during the lamp lifetime will not have any negative effect on the lamp’s performance. However, exceeding this figure will begin to reduce the overall lifetime of the lamp, so excessive strikes are undesirable. 

Martin™ fixtures’ personality settings can be configured so that a command from the control desk is required to power the lamp on after mains power is applied. We recommend that you use this feature in order to minimize power consumption and hours of lamp operation. When you do this, power the lamp on approximately 15 minutes before the fixture is used so that the lamp has time to stabilize at its correct operating temperature.