What is wrong with this pic V

Are we getting side tracked here?
 
yes i always use the covering, but occasionally there is a problem with a lamp that is already in a fixture but is not burnt out and rather than searching around for an old wrapper it would be easier to have a glove handy.
 
Yes you are correct - these posts are designed to encourage discussion around the topic. However, touching a lamp is not the only cause of lamp failure. My point was not to stop the discussion. It is important that people know this point but is it really worthy of a couple of pages worth of posts? After all how many different ways or times can one say "don't touch the lamps” or “clean them if you do"?).

The whole point about posting a picture without any supportive descriptions is to get people looking at the full range of possible causes. We don’t care if they are wrong and certainly will not laugh or ridicule someone for posting such a response. The whole point is to stimulate discussion around the topic and get people to look at other possible causes.

A few pointers to assist you in thinking about this one:

How does a lamp work?
What components ccomprise lamp?
Is there any damage or change in any of these components in this picture when compared to a new lamp?
Also – lamps require other things to be present for them to work.

Hopefully this will set you on track to think about the whole picture.
 
Isopropyl works just fine; usually, touching lamps isn't a problem, as most come packaged in special thin mattress-foamy type stuff, and you can install them without really needing to touch them with bare hands.

If anyone's got the time (and money to throw away) and is bored enough, you should try greasing up the lamps in special patterns, to see if they'll look especially cool when they pop. I've always wanted to try that. It's like the less artistic, klutzy-tech version of blown glass, I'll bet.
 
Tell me something - what happens to the filament of a lamp when it blows due to a greasy finger print?
 
Does it bend/blow towards the spot? Its been a while since I have seen one and even they I just toss them and replace, unless they are cool looking.
 
man get off the whole toughing the lamp thing already. lamps blow for other reasons to you know.

i cnat think of more than to much volts and bumping them when they are hot which i have done a few times with fresnells when the slider gets stuck :(

i am pretty sure that it is not fingering the lamp in this case. Mayhem has sort of hinted to it above.

My guess is that it copped a voltage spike
 
Well done to 9voltnewbie :idea:

Fingering the lamp was not the cause in this case. Also, my question about the filament deflecting away or towards the finger print (in the case of a touched lamp) was simply a red herring. The intention was to get you to look at the picture once again. If all had gone to script, "Where, oh where is the filament?" would have been the cry.

So, in light of this elimination of the much fancied finger prints being the cause, I will let you ponder this (remember, the filament has gone* in the lamp in the original picture) and provide you with some additional pictures to wet your inquisitive appetites.

Don't give up now - lets hear some new theories.


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* and no it wasn’t abducted by aliens
 
Of note on photo #4 is that it still worked beyond the point the filament had bubbled thru the glass and only failed when the filament finally got stretched too far.

Primary question related on this is the center large incandescent bulb. There is no filament, just a lot of filament hangers and welded blobs at points the filament attached to. You will also note that incandescent lamps with soft lime glass instead of quartz glass are un-effected by touching thus this was not the cause.

You will also note by the variety of failures, that there are many differing examples - far too many to simply say as with the main photo, it's a lamp failure... someone must have touched it.

From photo #5, identify what the lamps are left to right and row by row, than the probable cause of either the failure or removal from service. Nine smaller lamps, two larger lamps.

Beyond all of this, there is still a very specific similarity of the failure in the large lamp, the first FEL lamp posted about and lamp #4. The large incandescent lamp shows much of what's going on in this condition. Why don't the other lamps also show this given the same possible cause. That's of course given #4 lamp suffers from the same probable problem as the FEL and large lamp as opposed to being more similar to lamp #9 given type and location.

Good luck. If of any help, the Ushio website should have a article by their "lamp doctor" about failures in lamps.

From the photos, #2-5 are the same basic lamp as is #7&8 the same and in this case a arc source instead of filament type, with #9 being the large incandescent one and ten the large halogen one off the photo image.
 
Before I check out the Lamp Doctor, I'd say another cause is shock or vibration. If someone was focusing a light FOH and another crew member was hanging another light, or scenery bumps an electric while lamps are hot, it could over stress the posts holding the filament in place.
Not sure on the discolored lamps, though I'll be the first to admit I should know since I've come across them several times. Perhaps it is the coating from the filament, but I'm not sure how/why it would spead onto the envelope.
I haven't worked with Arc lamps much....
-Mike
 
BTW-
Look back at the first picture at the beginning of the thread......
am I really overworked or does that blown lamp look like the robot from Futurama?
-Mike
 
Sleep is always good, but to an artist, seeing what is not there is also useful.
 
Wow! It's Bender!

For pic 5:
FCM; 4x FDB; EHD,EHG or EHF; and what looks like maybe DPW, but I don't think it is the same. Looks similar though.

Next row:

2x HMI 1200(?); and maybe an EVR or Q250E14? Hard to tell really.
 
“For pic 5:
FCM; 4x FDB; EHD,EHG or EHF; and what looks like maybe DPW, but I don't think it is the same. Looks similar though.

Next row:

2x HMI 1200(?); and maybe an EVR or Q250E14? Hard to tell really.”



Q250E14??? what are you writing your own lamp codes now or is it a trick question? I'm aware of only one Europian screw based lamp at 250w and it's proper description would be Q250CL/E14. Very rare lamp and not a common one that could either be it or the E-11 based EVR above. More common to name amongst many wattage in this lamp base type would be something like a Q250/MC. Still good effort in figuring it out.

Ah’ someone brave enough to take the challenge! Much less that studied some into lamps!

Your scale is a bit off given the #4 lamp is most likely in un expanded form either a T-3 or T-4 in bulb size. Given a FDB is 6.9/16" long and 1.5Kw, it’s unlikely given if it has a T-4 bulb size, than this being out of scale does not work once you note bulb #4's size as opposed to the rest of the double ended lamps in length. T-4 = ½" in dia. Also, most lamps are for use in common equipment so expect that the bulk of bad ones will be simple to figure out.

I should hint that most of the lamps above have a 4.9/16" MOL otherwise and were found in Altman or Colortran Ground Cyc fixtures.

This is on the other hand is a EHG lamp, and good guess in scaling it’s T-5 or T-6 bulb dia. Verses that of a defiantly T-6 or T-8 FEL or FLK which are possibly slightly longer in MOL.

Good guess on the DPW!!!. Nope, this was a 1.5Kw lamp, but still good guess. What lamp(s) could it than be? Take it for a given that if it could be a DPW, than the user probably wanted to maximize the life for output. This should hone you in. Forget what fixture it’s used on if you want extra credit, but I assure myself of being lucky in retaining this lamp once I got the customer his replacement. I neither stocked replacements, nor had ever seen this specific bulb before. Talk about seeing things in a bulb image.... anyone see a standard KilRoy was there shape to the opposing end of the filament shooting out of the glass here in other photos?

This sucking in of the opposing side of the in this case a incandescent lamp is what you would see also in a halogen lamp given the same type of glass used as a very similar and important example of what's going on here to the first of this question's lamp. Note in both instances the filament size hole in the glass forming a hole around it as if a bullet shot thru the lamp and the glass held to it's after effects. Given the vioence of such an action, one shoud be assured that the warming effects of touching a bulb would not have the same effect. Much less given the soft lime glass of the second example of the incandescent lamp, you can touch it as much as you want and the oil from your fingers won't effect the lamp. This is important to know about as otherwise an observation others earlier built upon as a standard problem possibly in this photo shown to be the cause otherwise.

HMI 1200 as my most favorite game I play with techies looking for lamps, limits the lamp to one of five choices including the PAR 64 version by the description you gave. Normally I say one of about 12 in necessitating the tech person walks back up stairs and figures out what lamp they want, but in actuality there is only five versions of this. Such a walk to figure out what they want helps to solve the below problem in the field, much less offers me more time to finish working on what I’m doing.
A hint is that it’s both a common lamp on high technology gear and that it’s name is about to change to an even harder one to remember. If you are hanging upside down on a truss in asking someone to get you a spare HMI 1200, given I stock three different types and a fourth is noted on our spare lamp page, you might just get the wrong lamp sent to you by someone that knows less than you.

Partial credit but no credit for this lamp. Refine your very expensive lamp a bit further. “You go back... you not ready to swim with the big fish...” I also say to the techie. Note of course the second version of it in the only time I have ever seen a pre-exploded lamp in this kind of condition. What do you think caused the second “HMI 1200" lamp to get like this? Bonus points also if you can say the five other description codes for this lamp by other vendors for this same lamp given multi-vapor lamps don’t have ANSI codes to them thus there is similar lettering but no standardized lamp code.

Last lamp, good also the EVR in the quiz. Very well done!!!

Over all, right on just about all lamps except the scale of bulb dia. on the double ended ones. If of help, compare their length before becoming a sort of arc lamp :) with the EHG in line with them for MOL they are most similar to.

After that, very impressive, when are you going to send an application so I can get an assistant? I’m glad someone took the challenge, everyone should have as it’s but a part for making things work especially lighting guys should be able to figure out. Far too often the writing as to what a lamp is wears off with heat. Than what are you going to do beyond figure it out to make it work?

Missed out in the last lamp as shown in photo's one, two and three. This should be an easy one.
 
well with school and stuff, and with all the questions that I didn't know as much about, I haven't looked into the QOTD topics recently, but I skimmed through most of this and read thorougly Ships posts a few times. I also read the USHIO Faq which was as good an article I could find on their site about lamps in general. It said that lamps will sometimes fail because as the filamentheats up--being in use for many hours at a time at full power--it will get too hot and sag. It said the sagging cause the filament to bubble out--my guess is that as the filament gets closer, even the heat resistant quartz is heated up too much and melts enough to bubble out, in this case both the sag and the bubble should be pulled straight down by gravity, so to determine if that is what caused the failure, I think you could determine that by looking at the lamp in the fixture and seeing where the bubble is. I might be wrong though. Eventually it lookslike either the glass gets too hot and part of it actually develops a hole, or the filament stretches too much and tears. It seems that both of these are causes of failures in these lamps- some seem to have holes in the bubble while others don't. My guess is the holes are where the bubble popped, the ones without is where the filament broke.

And I have a question with a proposed answer that is possibly wrong--why do blown lamps, such as that big one with the mogul base in the pictures here, often have crap all ove the inside? is that the undeposited tungsten, that suddenly is deposited wherever when the halogen cycle ends, when the lamp blows?

ship, you make me think. thanks!
 
I'll send my application once I get out of high school! :wink:

The DPW one is tough, I'm assuming it came out of either a slide/film projector or maybe an old Strong Trouperette or an Altspot? One thing that is making this difficult is the variances between manufacturers.

Thinking maybe HTI300 on the other one...
 
Go to college first, otherwise I can't as thoroughly abuse you OJT.

Thinking maybe HTI300 on the other one...

Which one of three versions of the HTI 300? In any case, I hope the photo does not show a T-16mm thru T-17.5mm sized lamp

Much less this last lamp is not a SFc10-4 type of lamp base. If of any help, this last lamp is not a multi-vapor lamp type.
 

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