# Bulbs Blowing???



## Stoner_Pez (Jun 6, 2008)

I have a 6 foot by 2 foot by 2 foot vivarium, so its fairly biggish. I put all the electricals in with my dad, and they seem to work fine. 

The light fittings are rated up to 150 watts each as there are two light fittings, 1 at each end. I was advised by a specialist reptile shop to use a 150 watt at one end to have a hot end for my iggy to warm up, and a 60 watt bulb down the other for him to cool down or just in general regulate his body temperature as and how he pleases. 

Anyway i got a 60w and a 150 watt bulb from the shop and i put them both in, after about an hour the 150 watt bulb blew. So i was like, oh shit, faulty bulb and got a replacement from the same shop, i put the replacement in and turned the power on, within 3 seconds the bulb blew again. SO then i went to homebase and got 2 100 watt bulbs. I put on in and it blew within the hour, put the other one in and tha blew again in a few hours. 

While this is going on the 60 watt was still working fine in both of the bulb holders . . . .

Does anyone have any idea wtf is going on because its really frustrating me. Basically i have 2 60 watt bulbs in there now, and tbh, its not really enough to keep it warm. It struggles to get to the 86F that my iggy needs and when it does its blastingt it full power all day, and keeping the temp up at around 72F at night is equally hard. 

I really need some help if anyone has any suggestions


----------



## Rencey (Sep 5, 2008)

the wiring or the holder are not sufficiant to take the 160w watt bulb it sounds like its a 40w setup i had a similar problem whem i put a 100w bulb in a 40w besk lamp it kept blowing then just cooked its self out try going to maplin getting a ceramic holder some 0.75mm heat proof flex and a plug top that will sort it out remember tho to take the 13amp fuse out of the plug top and putt a smaller one in as you are only potentially drawing 0.65amps. try that and let me know


----------



## reptiles-ink (Nov 4, 2006)

It could be a bad contact on the holder, where the bulb makes contact, where the wire connects to it or in the mains plug.
If it is a bad contact causing it to arc then a 60w bulb may not cause it due to the lower requirement.
Also with the holder being rated at 150w I would upgrade it as you are running it right on its limit.


----------



## Stoner_Pez (Jun 6, 2008)

Yer, the guy in the shop said ceramic bulbs arent as good. In my other viv with my little iggy i have a ceramic bulb, had it for like 18 months and never had a problem with it, i was tempted to change to ceramic bulbs but he said theyre old skool and recommended the spotlight bulbs. First off the guy gave me two 40w holders, and a 150w bulb and a 60w bulb, obviously he didnt realise they were only 40w holders. 

So go to maplins and get bigger holders and a smaller fuse for the plug?


----------



## reptiles-ink (Nov 4, 2006)

Rencey said:


> try going to maplin getting a ceramic holder some 0.75mm heat proof flex and a plug top that will sort it out remember tho to take the 13amp fuse out of the plug top and putt a smaller one in as you are only potentially drawing 0.65amps. try that and let me know


I can supply a ceramic holder and heat cable which will handle well over 1000w for £4.55 plus postage


----------



## reptiles-ink (Nov 4, 2006)

Stoner_Pez said:


> Yer, the guy in the shop said ceramic bulbs arent as good. In my other viv with my little iggy i have a ceramic bulb, had it for like 18 months and never had a problem with it, i was tempted to change to ceramic bulbs but he said theyre old skool and recommended the spotlight bulbs. First off the guy gave me two 40w holders, and a 150w bulb and a 60w bulb, obviously he didnt realise they were only 40w holders.
> 
> So go to maplins and get bigger holders and a smaller fuse for the plug?


A ceramic holder will work with ceramic bulbs and spotlight bulbs which have the E27 screw thread.


----------



## Stoner_Pez (Jun 6, 2008)

ok cheers ill get back to you on that. Do you have a website or anything i can pay online with at all?


----------



## reptiles-ink (Nov 4, 2006)

I can take paypal or you can go via my ebay shop here


----------



## Rencey (Sep 5, 2008)

reptiles-ink said:


> I can supply a ceramic holder and heat cable which will handle well over 1000w for £4.55 plus postage


here you go mate unfortunatly my friend i do all my electrics and that my self and get the bits at trade but the owner of the thread may need you to supply the parts thank you for your help.:no1:


----------



## Rencey (Sep 5, 2008)

also for future reference there is 4.3amps to the kw so the cable you said is a tad overkill lol 0.5mm will do up to 100w so 0.75mm or1mm flex is fine


----------



## fixitsan (Apr 15, 2008)

Stoner_Pez said:


> Anyway i got a 60w and a 150 watt bulb from the shop and i put them both in, after about an hour the 150 watt bulb blew.
> I really need some help if anyone has any suggestions


If the viv is long and the top lid opens upwards, and the lights are mounted there, any movement of the lid while the lights are hot are going to make them fail. I only mention it because itis always a bad idea to subject a hot bulb to any form of movement (in case that's how you access yoiur viv)

Usually though, an arcing terminal in the bulb socket or even the plug would cause this, but I suspect you would hear it feint buzzing and would have noticed that.

I was also going to suggest bulb overheating, but you say that one bulb lasted only 3 seconds.That's not an overheating issue.

It may be that the bulbs were subjected to violent shocks during transit which has weakened the filaments, but you're getting the same symptoms with disimilar bulbs. That would be rare.

TBH I would recheck every screw terminal in the circuit, but failing that you shoudl return the blown bulbs or just the packaging to the shops conerned so that they can record the batch codes. Bulbs never blow repeatedly, without there usually also being a noticeable fault like the lamp flickering (bad connection)


----------



## Stoner_Pez (Jun 6, 2008)

Yer i get what you mean, there were a total for 5 bulbs bought from 2 different places. The guy in the reptile shop sed he had trouble with these bulbs so i thought it might be that. But when the tottally different bulbs from a tottally different place did the same thing it was like wtf. Ill check the wiring and stuff but i have two 60w in there now and theyre fine.


----------

