I don't physically deal much with HPL lamps in their demise other than collecting them up for a study at the moment (those that know who I am off line, send me your spent HPL lamps for the next month or three to help with this study - it could be really useful in advancing the lamp science and I might be able to swing some exchange). I do buy the lamp base replacement parts and save a good amount of money in getting them for a multitude of lamps thru my lamp distributer as opposed to direct from the fixture manufacturer. This is the case of the HPL and even Mac 2K lamp bases, but I buy such parts in bulk as a minder here in what saves me money does not at all times mean it will be cheaper on the onezees or even twentyzees amounts.
The following photos show examples however of some Mac 2K or Mac 700 lamps which also had bad lamp bases which caused lamp failure. Often those changing the lamps won't note the lamp socket or even condition of the lamp base on the lamp and they will just return the lamp as bad or "exploded" but won't consider on these $100.00 plus lamps each what caused that failure. AT times before I even get to inspecting and
tracking the lamps on the computer, they will have already have had two or three lamp failures in the same lighting fixture due to a bad fixture lamp socket and still not have changed it. That means the price of lamps, plus man-hours at times in premium IA labor for the time to change the lamps each time all caused by a bad fixture lamp socket that is killing off lamps left and right. Do my best of course to warn the crew chiefs of the tours... pull VL3K SP 126 from service ASAP, it's on it's third lamp in six months now caused by the same bad lamp base, but often that is really hard to do in figuring out or remembering what fixture that was amongst a few hundred lights and won't be found until the next lamp fails thus costing upwards of well over $400+ per time it happens on each fixture before it has a hope of a problem solved. This given a lack of inspecting the lamp and understanding what caused the failure.
The following is some photos of bad lamp bases caused by bad fixture lamp bases. 034, note the lower one with it's darker color of lamp base and bent screw thread. 009 while not such a great photo shows a monofoil that escaped thru a pinch crack on the lamp. Question is what caused this failure, the bad fixture lamp base overheating the lamp or a fault in the lamp? Overheating of the fixture socket in this case caused overheating of the lamp and it's failure -another stage hand's day rate in one bad lamp means one less day someone is employeed - at least how I consider such things. Of the three lamps in photo 001, none show signs of overheating and all were lamp based failures.