Selecon Fresnels - Faulty sockets

[BryceKastor]

Hi CB

I am trying to poll other users of Selecon Fresnels.
I specifically have 24 of the Selecon Rama 6" Instruments. Some of these instruments have a Bryant Style "socket" and others have a different style - brass coloured contact that has a divot in the centre of the contact.

The Bryant style "socket" have performed well.
Over the past two years, the other style of base has begun to fail alarmingly. The contacts appear to arc easily causing scoring and corrosion on the lamp bases and the contacts. The result has been a drastic shortening in the life of the bulb and is beginning.

What also appears to be happening is the spring pressing the contact to the lamp is failing as well. We have had to remove at least two instruments from our inventory as the bass will not reliably hold the bulb with enough pressure to keep a secure contact. My guess is this is the overall issue with the bases and it is what is causing the arcing on my other units.

The units are new (2 years old and were specced with the space by the consultant). We have been having a huge problem getting any movement on this issue. Recently we were told that there is an acknowledged issue but alas, there is no recourse in Canada. There is apparently a new "socket" available in the US but it has not been CSA / ULC approved and Selecon will not ship the new part to us because of this.

There has been no movement on behalf of the supplier of the lamps to address this issue, in fact they just told us to contact the manufactuer.... initially they couldn't help us (supplier sent us to the wrong division in phillips) and we finally got some info out of the only Strand shop remaining in Ontario, Sceneworks (in Guelph, ON).

I am writing this rant to gather others opinions on:
A) similar experiences
B) suggest methods of rectifying my situation through warranty channels
C) spread the word for anyone using these isntruments to check them and make some noise about getting theirs repaired.
D) to warn anyone interested in buying these instrument to ASK QUESTIONS FIRST!!

These are good lights that have one primary faulty problem, they will fail with the stock componants!
... well I also have a problem with the way they secure accessories and interfere with the barn door safety chain but that I can deal with.

I am going to try and post photos later that show what I have described above.

Thanks for listening CB!
Steven

tech notes complete: all references to "bases" have been replaced to "socket" to satisfy designers below

 

[josh88]

I would think you can at least get replacement retaining springs to solve the not holding a lamp in anymore issue. That should be a small pretty cheap part. I won't comment other than that since I've no experience with these in particular.

 

[Aerial]

I wish I knew what type of Selecon fresnel I have in my inventory. I've got ten 7" units but haven't been able to peg a specific model name for what I have. I haven't found any specs on line that match what is on the instruments themselves. I don't have one nearby at the moment.

Our install was back in 2005 and I am seeing a good deal of pitting/corrosion on many of the fresnels as well. I started looking for some more sockets over a year ago through all sorts of vendors. It seemed no one could find any. I finally managed to get some through Barbizon, after having talked to them many times over the course of a year about the same sockets. Because I'm under the impression these things will be even harder to find as the future progresses I ordered as many as my budget could allow.

The ones I received however are about 53mm high compared to about 47mm for the originals. Obviously these are not direct replacements. After experiencing that what I want is hard to find and/or impossible to get I tried one of the new ones out. I couldn't see any noticeable issues so I'll just keep what I have and hope for no problems down the line.

Just don't get me started on the issues I've had with the selecon hui cyc lights...

 

[BryceKastor]

Here are the pics I had...
1) pretty Bryant base... nice
2) two pics of the "other" bases

 

[tdrga]

Steven,

I have a few of the 7" Selecon fresnels and I made sure to specify the bi-pin base for exactly this reason. I found through the years that the prefocus style of base would eventually develop arcing on the center contact as the spring loses its strength due to the cyclic heating and cooling from normal use.

What warranty terms did you get with the instruments? Two year old instruments may be out of warranty- if that is the case, you might think about doing the base replacement yourself.

I found this shopping link as an example- not sure if this is the correct lampholder for your instruments and I have not dealt with this vendor:

Lampline.com - $17.65 Ushio Medium Prefocus 1001264 Replacement Lampholder

-Todd

 

[BanditRO]

Hi CB

I am trying to poll other users of Selecon Fresnels.
I specifically have 24 of the Selecon Rama 6" Instruments. Some of these instruments have a Bryant Style base and others have a different style - brass coloured contact that has a divot in the centre of the contact.

The Bryant style bases have performed well.
Over the past two years, the other style of base has begun to fail alarmingly. The contacts appear to arc easily causing scoring and corrosion on the lamp bases and the contacts. The result has been a drastic shortening in the life of the bulb and is beginning.

What also appears to be happening is the spring pressing the contact to the lamp is failing as well. We have had to remove at least two instruments from our inventory as the bass will not reliably hold the bulb with enough pressure to keep a secure contact. My guess is this is the overall issue with the bases and it is what is causing the arcing on my other units.

The units are new (2 years old and were specced with the space by the consultant). We have been having a huge problem getting any movement on this issue. Recently we were told that there is an acknowledged issue but there is no recourse in Canada. There is apparently a new base available in the US but it has not been CSA / ULC approved and Selecon will not ship the new part to us because of this.

There has been no movement on behalf of the supplier of the lamps to address this issue, in fact they just told us to contact the manufactuer.... initially they couldn't help us (supplier sent us to the wrong division in phillips) and we finally got some info out of the only Strand shop remaining in Ontario, Sceneworks (in Guelph, ON).

I am writing this rant to gather others opinions on:
A) similar experiences
B) suggest methods of rectifying my situation through warranty channels
C) spread the word for anyone using these isntruments to check them and make some noise about getting theirs repaired.
D) to warn anyone interested in buying these instrument to ASK QUESTIONS FIRST!!

These are good lights that have one primary faulty problem, they will fail with the stock componants!
... well I also have a problem with the way they secure accessories and interfere with the barn door safety chain but that I can deal with.

I am going to try and post photos later that show what I have described above.

Thanks for listening CB!
Steven

Unrelated to Selecon I believe. I ran into this years ago and the situation was created by the lamp itself. The "little button" on the lampholder is to create a larger surface area to contact the bottom the MPF lamp (BTL, etc.) I ran into a manufacturer where the LAMP did not have the necessary "bump" on the lamp base to make good contact. The ceramic bit at the bottom of the lamp was contacting the base, but the actual brass contact on the lamp was not making adequate contact and created the arcing effect similar to that shown in the images above.

My point is make sure the lamp is adequately contacting the lampholder.

 

[derekleffew]

... 1) pretty Bryant base...

Socket. The base is part of the lamp!

 

[BryceKastor]

My apologies ... I could barely crawl out of the morass of paper on my desk to write the original post. I knew it was wrong when I said it but my brain was just refusing to come up with it

 

[gafftaper]

I had 6" Rama Fresnels at my previous job. They were manufactured in 2006/2007 I believe. I didn't notice any pitting issues. However I had a terrible problem with getting lamps out of the socket. The fit in the sockets were way too tight. It would sometimes take me 10-15 minutes to remove a bad lamp. Often I had to resort to completely destroying the lamp and removing it from the socket in chunks. Unfortunately, I didn't use them very often so I didn't notice this as a problem until last spring when the waranty was long up and Selecon had become Strand. I left that job before I had a chance to figure out how to deal with the problem.

 

[Aerial]

How long (mm) is a G22 socket with a 1000w EGT lamp seated in it?

I have a few of the 7" Selecon fresnels and I made sure to specify the bi-pin base for exactly this reason.

-Todd

This topic has been dead for a while now, but I feel it is still relevant. I'd like to ask this question before looking much further into replacing my current sockets with Bi pin. I'm all out of the replacements I got and this may be an easier route to take. The Selecon website shows the option for the 7" Rama high performance fresnel with a G22 socket with a 1000w EGT lamp. I like the idea of the bi-pin base if I'm going to be switching them out anyway as it was hard for me to get the direct replacement I wanted. I want to check the measurement because I still can't be certain of what fixture model fresnels I have, and want to compare the result with the measurements of the replacement bases.

 

[derekleffew]

How long (mm) is a G22 socket with a 1000w EGT lamp seated in it? ...I like the idea of the bi-pin base if I'm going to be switching them out anyway as it was hard for me to get the direct replacement I wanted. ... of the replacement bases.

The EGT lamp has a medium bi-post base (not bi-pin/G9.5) that fits into a G22 socket.

LCL of the EGT is 2.477 in (62.9 mm); for the BTR is 2.185 in (55.5 mm), so some adjustment must be required.

 

[Ron Foley]

replacment sockets for rama's available from Scenework
449 Laird Road Unit # 1
Guelph, Ontario
N1G 4W1
519-837-0583
[email protected]

 

[ship]

The amount of damage to the lamp socket does not appear to be other lamp type dimple base lamp base related. That's a further discussion about recessed center flat plate contacts in some brands to perhaps compensate for the harder dimple base verses on some lamps. One would think ANSI standards has covered this concept but perhaps not.

But in this case, given the spreading of the arching of the lamp socket, It's probably as told a weakening of the spring of the Bryant lamp socket base. That's not a good thing in that Bryant has been making lamp sockets since the turn of the last century and certainly has been making quality lamp sockets in a P-28 version since the invention - about 1934 or 28' depenant on history.

I often say, put a bad lamp into a perfectly good lamp socket, and you have a bad socket now. Put a good lamp into a bad socket and you have a bad lamp. Given how newish your fixtures are... both spring tension problems and either problem should not be the case. This spring tension problem should not be a problem especially if noted that there is two brands of lamp socket... the other does not have a problem.

Where am I missing something other than Selecon changing corporate ownership/Pass Seymore I believe owns Bryant and the obvious challenges in dealing with Phillips for anything they acquired. Ah' as stated above what department to go to for a problem given overall corporate structure.

If you find a sales rep.. as confused as I would be in an in warranty issues say with NSI that I established our account with years ago, that's a good sales person. Strand parts in getting on my part... I might do Barbizon at this point in totally no thoughts. Selcon, have some fixtures but have not run across parts issues yet. I have no idea and luckily where I work has the electronics part finder also who I can throw it to in her problem. All she does for a living, though often at times we work together in solving the problem in pulling sources.

Going G-22 base!!! This was a huge debate in the late 1950's as to what lamp to use for a Leko. (At least in technology presented.) The G-22 lamp socket certainly has some advantages over the P-28s lamp socket by way of surface of the contact areas of the pins verses fins. While one can resurface both, the G-22 lamp socket in question of spring tension on the actual pin or plate will play less a role on the surface contact area of the lamp base to the lamp.

G-22 lamps will resurface and I think provide a better surface contact on resurfaced lamp sockets than P-28 bases. Them switching back in the 50's were correct in why we saw a large switch over from the P-28s lamp socket on Leko's to the G-22.

Just the quality of the G-22 lamp socket which stopped such innovation. The G-22 base of the day was fairly crappy and thus I think the back to P-28s in general lamp socket.