Thorn 2D Wedge Compact Fluorescent Light Fitting 1980s

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]This video I have a bit of lighting.

[00:00:02]Looks like it's probably from the 1980s.

[00:00:05]I just picked it up cuz I thought it was kind of interesting.

[00:00:09]Made by Thorn. It's called a 2D wedge which mounts on the side of the brickwork like that.

[00:00:16]Selector for the Design Centre London.

[00:00:19]There's a bit of info on the end.

[00:00:21]New Thorn 2D light bulb beats a standard bulb for value, uses 75% less energy, similar color, lasts five times longer.

[00:00:32]It says 100 W and that's 16 W. 1230 lm, 1050 lm, it's a little bit less.

[00:00:40]2D fitting with the 16 bulbs consume a total of 21 W.

[00:00:45]And I looked it up online even before I opened this thing and yeah, that's what it that's basically the bulb. It's a compact or early flat compact fluorescent type tube. So, I guess that extra power consumption is the ballast or whatever in there.

[00:01:04]And I did quickly open it up just before I started the video to see if there was actually a bulb in it cuz you never know when you buy these things. I didn't bother opening it up cuz it had a couple of Phillips screws in it and couldn't see inside there but that's the lamp. It looks like they came out from what I saw on the internet in different colors and yeah, they just pull out.

[00:01:22]Two-pin plug.

[00:01:25]It looks like these were developed after recently I was reading something coincidentally about Philips developed better phosphors in these lamps cuz supposedly the old lamps were quite large diameter fluorescent tubes because the ultraviolet arc which goes through these things would burn the phosphor.

[00:01:45]And somehow Philips came up with a better phosphor that can handle being closer basically so you can make a smaller diameter tube without burning the phosphors.

[00:01:54]And that is what what as soon as they invented that is what allowed Thorn to come up with these things and there was something about they couldn't do a lot of 90° bends or something in these things.

[00:02:06]Even though these are more than 90° but this was something about two 90s and two 180s or something.

[00:02:14]That was what someone was saying on the internet about it. I forget what they were actually saying but something to do with it bending the tube like that.

[00:02:25]And I guess we're going to have a quick look inside. This thing smells like it's new. I don't know if it is actually brand new but seems to be close.

[00:02:33]The fact they still got the packet for it.

[00:02:39]And there's no sign of a little tiny bit of dust in here but normally if this had been outside or somewhere you'd soon know there'd be rust on it, there'd be dust and god knows what, spider webs and stuff in it. Oh actually I didn't need to take them out, did I?

[00:02:52]Not even taking much notice of the fact these screws are going to cause problems to slide it.

[00:02:58]So we should be able to slide it across.

[00:03:02]But there's still a little bit of pain.

[00:03:04]Especially when you can't see what you're doing.

[00:03:06]See if I can actually grab this thing properly. That's it.

[00:03:11]Uh there we have it. Just a standard made in Great Britain.

[00:03:17]Didn't see many Great British made lamp fittings in Australia. Most of them back in those days at least were Australian made.

[00:03:24]Thorn lighting had their own branch over here I think.

[00:03:29]Yeah, just a ballast.

[00:03:32]No power factor correction capacitor or anything which you wouldn't need on just a small fitting like this. It was usually just one of them fitted.

[00:03:41]Doesn't say anything about the date it was made by the look of it.

[00:03:44]1 x 16 W.

[00:03:47]So yeah, pretty standard sort of fluorescent looking thing.

[00:03:54]Uh EMI Made in Britain, I think that says.

[00:04:01]Yeah, made in GT Britain.

[00:04:04]2 amps 250 volts, so I mean their power supply is basically the same as ours.

[00:04:09]So, as long as it passed whatever relevant standards, this is nicely made all metal construction.

[00:04:15]I think that Is that glass or plastic?

[00:04:17]Oh, that's plastic.

[00:04:19]Look like likely to be glass, but no, it's just a plastic thing. It is quite a heavy fitting.

[00:04:25]Very nice and solid.

[00:04:27]And your Thorn always made decent lighting. I don't think they ever made sort of a cheap lighting.

[00:04:32]And back in the '80s, most lighting was pretty well made, came with decent proper terminal blocks.

[00:04:38]You could actually wire onto a house or something.

[00:04:41]Unlike a lot of more modern stuff that often you can't like loop a couple of wires through there and the sort of things you find in house wiring.

[00:04:52]And yeah, made out of components that die under the heat and the ultraviolet There's probably a little bit of ultraviolet light escaping from these things.

[00:05:02]So, that went. Must be.

[00:05:05]Yeah, so it's very light little light bulb. Looks like plastic stuff.

[00:05:10]And I guess just a connection each end.

[00:05:13]Does it have a starter or something in there? That's another thing I guess being a fluoro.

[00:05:18]Let's hook it up and see if it blinks or anything. I mean, it should, I guess.

[00:05:23]It's a blinker.

[00:05:26]Yeah, very warm sort of color.

[00:05:32]Yeah, that would pass as an incandescent globe almost.

[00:05:39]Yeah, that's quite good.

[00:05:41]I see a little bit of a dim patch in the middle there, but normally that's maybe that's where they mount it on the wall like that.

[00:05:48]But yeah, look how yellow that is.

[00:05:58]Compare that to my fluoros here, which are slightly Well, a couple of lights that are cold and a couple that are warm.

[00:06:10]And what is very white.

[00:06:15]Bit but it's fairly quick.

[00:06:25]Yeah, kind of a cool light.

[00:06:27]I kind of like the fitting is You don't normally get them wall mounted like that. I guess what do we do here?

[00:06:32]Cable in there, couple of screw holes you can screw it they show it on brickwork.

[00:06:37]Rather rough brickwork at that.

[00:06:43]Hmm, I might find a use for that.

[00:06:51]And there's some nails on that sort of an angle.

[00:06:55]That's angled. That's angled.

[00:06:57]Oh well, bit of interesting old technology, but I just thought it'd be interesting to see what this light bulb is cuz not something you normally see.

[00:07:08]Makes a bit of noise.

[00:07:12]Is it the tube or the ballast?

[00:07:15]Couple of darker patches could suggest it's had a bit of use, or maybe that's just the way it is.

[00:07:20]I wonder if it gets um brighter as it warms up.

[00:07:25]I don't know if they should with these, but those horrible compact fluorescent lamps used to take ages to get going.

[00:07:36]So, hopefully this technology is a bit better. If it was back in the '80s, I don't think this really would have had to compete with incandescent globes.

[00:07:44]People weren't used to those abomination of compact fluorescent things back then.

[00:07:51]Which never should have been forced on people.

[00:07:56]Yeah, I'm not sure if that's really getting brighter.

[00:08:01]Given this lamp may have never been used or hasn't been used in a long time, it probably doesn't hurt to give it a bit of a run and let it burn in a bit.

[00:08:10]Yeah, it's making a little bit of noise.

[00:08:15]But you don't really hear that much with the cover on.

[00:08:21]Huh, oh well, what a weird contraption.

[00:08:24]That 2D wedge lamp or 2D fluoro lamp, I think they're called.

[00:08:33]Cuz it's just a plain shape, I guess, a flat plane rather than a a spiral or any sort of three dimension.

[00:08:45]Yeah, I know there's a few different like they made those round lamps that went round fluorescent tubes that went in those maggy lights or whatever they call them, the magnifying lights.

[00:08:57]And I think I've seen them in maybe signs or something. I've pulled them out of something something else had them in there.

[00:09:07]And yeah, generally they were the only sort of flat lamp you could see besides just the straight ones.

[00:09:16]I'm not sure if I've seen much else in the way of flattened out versions of fluoros like this as in coiled up or anything. I think it was mainly the round tubes they made.

[00:09:26]Now, there may be some other weird ones out there.

[00:09:31]But that was probably the latest and greatest thing in the '80s.

[00:09:35]And not sure they ever did all that well.

[00:09:40]Can't say I've ever seen one in actual use anywhere before. I think this is the first one I've ever touched.

[00:09:48]But yeah, interesting little piece.

[00:09:49]That's just a ballast, 16 W ballast, 16 W globe. I think they did say these came out in another wattage, which I forget if it was higher or lower.

[00:09:58]There is a bit of information online if anyone wants to search for a Thorn 2D lamp.

[00:10:05]I think these were unique to Thorn.

[00:10:08]So, they were the only ones that basically made this style, whereas, you know, most lamps you can get them from multiple manufacturers.

[00:10:15]So, they probably would have to make a few fittings to go with them like this.

[00:10:19]But I'm pretty sure that would do a quite an acceptable job.

[00:10:22]Probably was a pretty fancy sort of architectural type fitting mounted on the wall like that in the day. Different to most of the ones around.

[00:10:36]But yeah, I might have to find a home for that. Maybe I can use it as an outdoor lamp somewhere.

[00:10:42]But anyways, just something I thought I'd have a look at and some people might be interested in.

[00:10:47]There seems to be quite a lot of light bulb collectors out there. There are Facebook groups and stuff if you're interested.

[00:10:54]I think there's one for antique globes before a certain time. If you want to see the real early stuff, which is quite interesting.

[00:11:02]And there are other groups. I think there's a SOX as they call them in Britain, the sodium oxide or whatever, sodium lamps, the orange glowing street lamps and all the rest.

[00:11:13]All sorts of different groups into those sort of things.

[00:11:16]So, if anyone's interested, it's just like a lot of human things, there's been a million different styles invented and it's kind of interesting just to see what was what people actually came up with.

[00:11:30]What innovations there were, though yeah, most of the time it was just a good old standard ones that were everywhere.

[00:11:37]Standard fluores and standard incandescents were the main stream thing for everything.

[00:11:43]Very rare to see any of these other ones, and one of the reasons people didn't want these is you can't just go to the supermarket and buy a new globe for it.

[00:11:50]Maybe if they took off enough.

[00:11:53]But that was always a pain with round fluorescent tubes and stuff. You'd have to chase around to try and find a replacement most of the time.

[00:12:00]Whereas it was just a standard light bulb, you could always buy one at any hardware store or any supermarket without a problem. You usually had plenty of them in your cupboard ready to go.

[00:12:13]And no doubt the other thing with these is they probably cost more as well, partly because they were a rarer thing.

[00:12:19]And there wasn't a lot of competition.

[00:12:22]So that's another reason people didn't like buying special things.

[00:12:26]But kind of cool that someone bothered to come up with this design.

[00:12:31]And like I said, it seems to be related to the new phosphors developed by the Philips lighting factory so that they could bring these tubes down in size without burning all the phosphors off, cuz the old phosphors were supposedly not up to sitting close to the arc and getting fried by the ultraviolet or maybe it was something else to do with the arc, the temperature or something else cooked them.

[00:12:56]So things you don't necessarily think of unless you're a a lighting engineer.

[00:13:03]But that's a novel little light, so thanks for watching.