I have a couple of photofloods. The bulbs have two pins that go in two little holes. very much like a 110V plug in the wall.
The problem is that the contact is really unreliable. I'm sure that the problem is that the juice flowing across the connection is too high causing the contact to corrode. Of course, when that happens the light goes out.
I take the bulb out, steel wool the little contacts and put it back and it works for another day or two.
It looks like the socket is made of brass but I'm not sure what the little prongs are made of. If they are brass, then they are a very light colored brass.
Is there some liquidy kind of something that I could put on the prongs to get better connectivity?
A few possibilities here - are the brass contacts in the socket under tension, ie loaded towards the bulb prongs - could have lost tension, so will arc and cause the problem you describe. Possibly, if you can, remove them from the ceramic holder and try to tighten them up. Always dodgy - tend to losen up or break... The nothing to lose method is put a thin layer of solder on your bulb pins, and thus increase diameter.
If they have been arcing, they will be eroded as well. Electrical contact cleaner will remove (some) of the corrosion and help a bit - try CRC 2-26, or CRC Contact Cleaner - dont know if its available in your neck of the woods, but an excellent product range - one of the few things that work as well as the advertisements claim. A minor miracle these days..
Its a common problem - usually the result of poor/inadequate design in the socket pins, as someone mentioned, they get stinking hot...... but your price on replacements seems a bit on the outrageous side......especailly if its a crap design to start with - lets face it, the light bulb is not exactly a new developement..
Gee, sounds like a G-series bipin Quartz Halogen base. Available in both 12V and 120V lamps, and other odd voltages if you want to run off batteries. There are many different pin diameters and spacings, so hopefully you won't plug a 12V lamp into a 120V socket. (It is not idiot-proof, only idiot-resistant...) ;-P
You need to replace the lamp socket, bottom line. They are usually a plated steel, and once the plating goes they will quickly corrode right back up and make a bad connection. Any effort to repair the old socket is a waste of time unless you simply can't find the replacement part.
Most replacement sockets are a ceramic body with the special silicone/fiberglass high-temp lead wires factory installed. Take the fixture to a specialty lamp shop, they can find a standard industry socket that can work, though you might have to make minor mods like drilling new mounting holes.
No, the pins are a special steel alloy lead wire that has the same COE as the quartz glass of the lamp envelope, so thermal expansion doesn't crack the glass or any air is allowed to leak in.
Nope, gets far too hot. Anything that might work would boil away - or contaminate the quartz glass of the lamps and cause early failure.
You wouldn't like that, the lamps tend to shatter and explode in a failure like that. On a little 20-watt fixture, they just crack and go pfft and die... But the big 500W, 1000W and up stage lights go off like an M-80, watch the News Anchors jump three feet when a lamp pops on the news set and they're on the air.
OK Bruce. You got my attention. Yes, that's what they are. The lights are Lowel DP Floods. The bulbs come in three flavors: 500 Watt, 650 Watt and 1,000 watt.
I don't want to knock the lights because other than this, they are really great. Especially now that it's 16 degrees outside.
You're really sure about that aren't you? You didn't hesitate on that or put any qualifiers in there did you?
Nuts.
I found it on Lowel's web site. It's not as expensive as I'd thought ($23.00), but it's going to be a minor pain to replace it.
They sure do. Scares the devil out of the cat. He's taken to sitting on the photo shoot table because it's nice and toasty warm. But when a bulb blows he carves a straight line to the door knocking over everything in his path in his mad dash to get out. An episode like that can really wake you up on a sleepy morning!
Hey, reality time. I deal with one customer who uses a pretty bad stage light design monthly (Strand SL with 575W lamps), and they have horrible natural air flow through the convection-cooled lamp house which tends to cook the sockets. And you have to use the Phillips Broadway lamps for them to live since they run so hot, they'll chew up an Ushio lamp from overheat failure in a week or two.
The first time you take a BO lamp out that looks fine, and you see a big arc burn on one of the pins, it's the socket. Put in another new lamp, and it's just going to do the same thing - fail in a few days from the bad socket connection, the filament will be fine. Your only realistic choice is to change the socket.
What's the URL? And the model number of the light you have? I can take a look and see if a standard socket can work, and be a LOT less than $23 - sounds like they're sticking on a very healthy mark-up. (They probably buy the sockets in bulk from the OEM or a wholesale supplier like American DeRosa Lamp Parts.)
Go through the minor pain once, and be done with it for a bunch of years. Oh, while you are ordering parts, get one for each of your fixtures. You might not want to change them all now, but for one socket the handling and shipping will approach the cost of the part. Put three in the box and you're ahead of the game.
Are these fixtures fully enclosed? Are they up high enough to prevent accidental contact? Is He fixed, and does he know it?
If the cat has access to the lamp envelope, he could be depositing any number of "substances" (best I don't elaborate) on the glass when they are off that could contribute to failures when they're on...
If in doubt, wash down the lamps with rubbing alcohol.
Note: I have been owned by a neutered male cat before, and we went roundy round a few times on the subject of proper and improper indoor behaviors. I think I broke him of the habit (or at least I never caught him again) but it certainly wasn't easy.
But if you catch them in the act, cats figure out real fast they just did a bad thing when they get tackled, their nose rubbed in (whatever), escorted to the door while being held by the scruff like a kitten, and released outside like a bar bouncer going for the world Dwarf-tossing distance record... ;-)
It's Tough Love, but you do that a few times and suddenly they learn and understand the word /NO!/ If for no other reason than they're going to be stuck out there for a while, and all the good food, loving, and nice warm and safe napping spots are inside.
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