If you believe your lamps failed due to a manufacturer defect, or want to find out what otherwise caused the failure.
Inspection by you as to the cause of the failure on site is the quickest way to rule stuff like above out and possibly find the problem. Let us know as it's perhaps a unique problem from Covid others might see.
A long time ago I consulted
Mark and his lamp engineers about the question of
filament sag over a long time on some of my resale
stock 20 year old or older
ANSI lamps. Wasn't studied persay, but I believe the answer was gravity will probably
effect the
filament especially when larger and or longer. Kind of like the
bug screen on a
screen door - it's going to sag at the bottom some, especially given the
filament hangers are not like spline on that
screen door holding it tight and fixed to the frame. A
filament is a spring, normally not a cross weaved
screen helping to support against sag. But this would take years even for high wattage large filaments. Your 500w T-3
RSC Based yellow work light
filament you will likely see sag on after a few years especially if you do not use it much.
For personal training in looking at what to look at on the failed lamps...
Osram on their lamp speciation
page used to have a very excellent
manual on lamps which at a high school leve goes all aspects of a
halogen lamp including into some causes of failure (Not extensive enough.) You would have go onto say a lamp such as
HPL details. Than go to their further information and click on the free PDF file about
halogen lamps. I don't have it's name here, I'm out of town on an install. The
manual is an excellent education on lamps I have read it many times as with other manuals and guides. GE "Spectrum" manuals used to have a lot of info but are long gone. Ushio for instance used to have "Dr.
Bulb." If the Osram guide not on the website and PM
Mark directly, he might be able to
send you a copy of the PDF. I might also have a copy on my work computer.
Photo's on this website would be the next quickest way to cross out the easy cause of blowing. Photo of
fixture, where lamp was, lamp
base and detail photos of lamp and
base could be looked at by the many experts on lamps on the website.
Finally, if they were new lamps and failed before the expected lamp life, they should still be warranty for 2/3 or 50% expected lamp life dependent on manufacturer warranty.
Some suppliers will have their own warranty terms - say a few months after "
purchase date." They might have a or you could ask for a Covid exception to these terms.
If the supplier won't credit these lamps - (some will instantly without sending back to the manufacturer), some suppliers will later credit you for the lamps after sending them back to the manufacturer for inspection and manufacturer of fault. (It costs money and time to
send the lamps in but can solve a problem.) If the supplier won't take the lamps back, you can contact your lamp manufacturer for their own warranty perhaps
return. You might have to pay for this and most lamps are not made in the US, but it might spark enough interest in them paying shipping should this become an interesting "Covid" problem with lamps they need to get pro-active about with the manufacturers.
Say a warning to schools.... clean your dimmers and fixtures and inspect the lamps before attempting to
power up with them again afresh this year
etc. If your fixtures were powered up in warming
current for a year now without ever bringing up to full to replentish the even if low
voltage spent
tungsten.... perhaps
power the lights up to 20% for an hour and progress to... over a few hours before attempting to use them at "Full". I'm sure
ETC is all about this in warnings of this theoretical problem. Or if not.... perhaps a PR warning campaign about cleaning
etc. before powering up might be needed to be sparked by your noting this.
A few years ago I met most of the Osram lamp inspection engineer bosses, and met over the phone most of the Philips lamp engineer bosses. They are all very very smart - they are engineers who inspect lamps for a living as opposed to me part time as it were. Just as I in having inspected a few thousand
Mac 2K lamps over the years, I was able to tell from looking at a lamp how many hours it had been used within a hundred hours of it's
fixture stated usage. That's really good in looking at an arc lamp and telling how many hours it was in use - this say plus 100 hours if the
ballast or lamp
base had a problem. The more I saw moving light lamps of a type, the closer I could get to this estimation of lamp life and cause of failure on any other type of moving light lamp.
This past week I saw some failed lamps which got rained on. Oh' that explains a lot.
If you
return a lamp to the factory for inspection, it might take a while for it to get inspected. And you might or might not get a warranty refund for the lamp. It will also cost a lot of money to inspect the lamp by way of shipping and man/hours to inspect. Might even cause more R&D expense to figure out where the problem is coming from in working with the
fixture manufacturer.
On the other
hand, you find the answer to your problem eventually, and at times you might make huge changes to solve a problem.
Covid lamp problems just might become something new to study.