The Lamp Room

I thought I'd mention this here as someone might find it interesting. About 7 years ago, the 5 lamp chandelier in the living room used to have eco-halogen and standard incandescent lamps. They used to fail quite regularly - often tripping the breaker when they hit eol. This used to happen since the fitting had a standard switch at first so the lamps would not "soft start". One day the light was turned on and one of the lamps literally shot out of the cap, hit the ceiling and landed about 8 foot away from the light. It was the glass part of the lamp that landed on the floor. The B22 cap was still left in the base and it had to be removed with pliers. Has anyone else heard or had this happen to them? This is the only time I have ever had this happen.

The switch that controlled the fitting was later changed to a dimmer switch which helped increase the lamp life. In 2016, the old eco-halogen lamps were no longer available so I installed 5 Diall LED candle lamps and and to be honest, they have never had a problem!

I think somewhere in the GE lamp guides it mentions the, ‘bulb can be ejected out of its cap on occasions at EOL’, when on about internal fuses on GLS lamps.
I’ve never had this happen personally, but it does indeed happen on occasion yes

Only ever had this happen once. It was a Candle lamp B22 probably 40w. The lamps were probably from B&Q or Wilko.

If I remember correctly, the fuses in GE lamps are called 'Ballotini' fuses, names after the small glass balls the fuse is filled with as an insulator. I'm fairly sure GE made a point about other companies not using these and their fuses being more reliable.

Ive had this happen a few times with Status branded candle lamps in both halogen and tungsten!

Had to go on a few call-outs for Homebase to remove lamp caps from customers fittings where the base had remained. These were due to the glass 'bulb' having fallen off (glued on) as the light source was a small halogen capsule on legs inside.

I was correct about the fuses too - Ballotini - http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Documents/IN%20Fusing.htm

The lamps used to often blow the downstairs lighting circuit when they reached eol. A descent amount of current must have been drawn.

I have got a picture somewhere On LG of one that blew out of its base and landed on the bench

Slyspark has got it in one. In the good old days of quality British-made lamps, two Ballotini fuses would have been built into the lead-in wires. The Ballotini (miniature glass balls) acted as an arc quencher for the blowing fuse when the lamp filament failed and drew out an arc. An alternative quencher was sand. Modern Chinese cheapening of course involves the removal of such protection. Extreme high currents are reached at failure because arc lamps have a negative impedance characteristic. A series ballast would be required. Without the ballast, current rises uncontrollably.

Used to have this with GE 60W tungsten candles in our sitting room and it happened on several occasions, oddly though when we went down to 40W it stopped happening.
We've since changed fitting so now we have G9 LED capsules