Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with halogen

Fluke or fire hazard?

Ookseer — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 03:51:52 -0800

My halogen bulb just got melty. Should I throw out the fixture? I've had a 500 watt halogen work lamp that I've used daily for about 6 months. This evening I noticed that the light output dimmed significantly and when I turned it off I saw that the bulb had gone from a smooth glass tube to a lumpy melted tube. I don't keep it near any flammables or anywhere it would retain extra heat. It still puts out light, but probably 1/4 of what it did. I know these things get dangerously hot, but glass-meltingly hot seems ridiculous.

Do I have a fire hazard here? Should I replace the bulb or the whole thing?

[Insert obligatory lightbulb joke]

robcorr — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:28:42 -0800

Three of our lights have burned out, and it's about time I replaced them. Thing is, I have no idea where to start. Here's a picture of the light fitting with the cover removed.

I'm pretty sure it's an R7S halogen bulb, and I'm hoping to just pull it out and take it with me to the shop to get the right replacement.

But where do I start? What should I touch, what should I avoid?

Help with Halogens

RandlePatrickMcMurphy — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:00:01 -0800

How do I avoid setting my kitchen on fire with halogen lights? I need new lights in my kitchen and dining room. The obvious choice are halogen pendants, like these.

Of course I can't do anything the obvious way, and I want to use the same pendants covers with halogen in the kitchen and incandescent or CFL in the dining room, but (after bad torchiere experiences in college) I'm a little intimidated by the heat generated by those little halogens.

If I replace the existing clear plastic "can" that surrounds the bulb with something similar, what materials should I avoid? If I use frosted glass, is there a risk that the glass would crack in the heat? Would a regular paper/laminate lamp shade, like these melt or catch on fire?

And ultimately, is there a better way to provide good strong not unnatural lighting to a kitchen at the same or less cost and energy expenditure? LEDs? Xenon? CFL floods? Full-spectrum something?

I'm sure there's a creative answer somewhere and I'm like Alexander the Great standing in the light.

Your headlights are on

punkfloyd — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:58:54 -0800

Why was the U.S. so late in dropping incandescent sealed beam headlights on cars in favor of composite headlights (which feature separate bulb and lens). This always bothered me because in the 70s and 80s European market cars looked so much cooler/more modern than U.S. cars. When those cars were imported here, they had to revert to sealed beams until late 1980s...turning this into this.

Better bulb for those halogen torchieres?

bink — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 08:13:22 -0800

Does anyone make a better bulb for those ubiquitous halogen torchieres? You know the lamp, we all had one in college and zillions of them are still around.

Does anyone make a bulb out of LEDs or CF or something better than halogen that will work in the existing fitting of one of these lamps?

I know torchieres do exist in fluorescent form, but I was hoping somebody has come up with a more efficient bulb that would work in the old lamps.

Will dimmer switches dim LEDs?

twine42 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 06:06:42 -0800

If I replace halogen bulbs with LED clusters, will my dimmer switches still work? Our house has a collection of halogen light fittings which look very cool but which seem to use a lot of power as well as loosing a lot as heat.

I'd like to replace these bulbs with LED replacement sets that replace a single halogen with a cluster of white LEDs. They tend to run on standard 230v mains lighting circuits, so I assume they have some sort of circuitry inside to back it down to a handful of volts.

The question is, how will these interact with the dimmer switches already on the circuit? Will the LEDs dim like the halogens do, or will the just shut off, or is the transformer like circuitry likely to stabilize the voltage to 5v regardless of the incoming voltage?

How to choose exterior lights?

qldaddy — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 08:41:14 -0800

I need to choose new exterior lights for my home. Will the bright (get it?) minds of Mefi help me? I am having the exterior of my home redone (new siding, windows, gutters, etc.) and need to replace the 30-year-old sodium floodlights (there are no streetlights in my township, so exterior lighting is both a safety and security issue). Questions:

How much light (wattage? candles? lumens?) do I need? I have 4 60-watt sodium fixtures now (2 in front and 2 in back) and I like the amount of light I get but not the color.

What kind of light should I get? I'm thinking the choice is between halogen and flourescent, right? I am tempted by FloureX lights, but it looks like I could only buy bulbs from them, which worries me.

Things that might help in answering:
I have a good-sized split level house on about 7/8s of an acre.
I'm pretty well isolated from my neighbors' houses so I don't think the lights will impact them.
The lights will go under the eaves on the two-story part of the house and I'm afraid of heights, so duration is a prime consideration.

Thanks. (also, first time poster, so please be gentle. I did look through the other lighting filter questions and didn't think they got to what I'm asking)

Halogen bulb makes crackling noise

adrian_h — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 11:51:20 -0800

Is it normal for a halogen light bulb to crackle a little bit after you first install it? The bulb in my halogen lamp burned out, so I bought a new bulb and put it in today. I was careful not to touch my fingers to the bulb, handling it only by the ends.

When I turned it on, it lit the room nicely, but it made some soft crackling noises. They lasted a couple of minutes, and I turned off the light because it was freaking me out. I turned it back on, and the crackling noises were on-again-off-again.

It's a 300-watt bulb, and the lamp says "Use 300 watt or smaller."

I've replaced this bulb before, and I honestly don't remember whether I heard similar noises in the past. It's been a while.

Are these noises normal for a new bulb? Should I take the bulb out and put a new one in, with lower wattage?

This is a torchiere-style lamp, if that matters.

Thanks for helping this non-handyman.

Which desk lamp/task light should I buy?

NYCinephile — Thu, 25 May 2006 10:11:59 -0800

What affordable, high quality halogen desk lamp/task light would you recommend? Ideally, the lamp should not have too large a footprint.

Home Lighting Filter

ParisParamus — Sun, 27 Feb 2005 16:16:37 -0800

Why do incandescent light bulbs make my pale yellow walls look completely white? I recently painted the walls of my apartment a pale yellow with a green undertones (B.Moore's Stanhope Yellow). The walls look wonderful in natural light, but when the room is lit with incandescent soft white lamp light placed near a wall, said wall turns almost white (and turns completely white with a GE Reveal light bulb); the wall ~12 feet away from the light source remains the desired yellow. This whitening effect is less so with halogen lighting.

Since daylight is brighter than the incandescent lighting, what is going on here, and how can I avoid the "white-out" effect? And why would a bright halogen light source, halogen known for being very white light, not whiten the walls?