There is no single list price, because a "xenon lamp light source" is a system, not a lamp. The quote is driven by five things: lamp power, housing and cooling, optics, power supply and control, and the safety and calibration package. Two systems with the same 300 W bulb can differ by a factor of several in price, and the cheaper one often costs more over three years in bulb replacement and lost experimental time.
| Cost block | What you are paying for | Where cheap systems cut corners |
|---|---|---|
| Lamp and power supply | Short-arc bulb quality, ignition circuit, current stability | Unstable current shows up as output drift you cannot correct afterwards |
| Housing and cooling | Thermal design, airflow or water cooling, UV-safe enclosure | Inadequate cooling shortens bulb life and makes output unrepeatable |
| Optics | Reflector quality and coating, collimating or focusing elements, filter holders | Poor reflector figure gives a non-uniform spot and lower usable flux |
| Control and interface | Shutter control, timed protocols, irradiance feedback, software | Manual shutter and no logging forces you to babysit every run |
| Safety and documentation | UV/IR shielding, interlocks, calibration certificate, traceable specs | Missing interlocks and no certificate make the data hard to defend in review |
Consider two scenarios over three years. A low-cost system with an unstable supply and weak cooling may consume bulbs noticeably faster and produce irradiance that drifts within a run, forcing you to discard experiments. A properly specified system costs more up front and less per experiment. The calculation that matters is cost per usable data point, not purchase price. Ask for bulb life at rated current, cooling specification, and irradiance stability over four hours — those three numbers separate systems far better than the headline wattage.
Because the configuration space is large and most suppliers quote per project. A credible quote should itemise the blocks in the table above, so you can see what you are and are not buying.
No. Higher electrical power does not scale linearly with delivered optical power, and it raises thermal load on the reactor. Match the lamp to the illuminated area and the photon flux your chemistry needs.
Bulbs and time. Bulb replacement intervals and the labour hours spent re-running experiments spoiled by drift usually exceed the initial price difference between a budget and a properly specified system.
