11   Lamps / Modern / Re: Does Transporting BT-shaped Mercury Lamps Cause Looseness?  on: February 09, 2026, 11:55:41 PM 
Started by Maxim - Last post by Maxim
Yeah. I'm simply lucky the lamp was in its tight-fitting sleeve!
 12   Advertisements / Wanted / Re: How Do I Go About Getting F96PG17 Fluorescent Tubes?  on: February 09, 2026, 11:55:25 PM 
Started by Burrito - Last post by wide-lite 1000
 The eBay ones are about 5 hours drive from me . If I really wanted to get one or more , I'd be tempted to go pick them up in person.
 13   Lanterns/Fixtures / Modern / Re: Does anyone know when the Classic Wide-Lite style floods discontinued?  on: February 09, 2026, 11:48:06 PM 
Started by Milwaukeeman2003 - Last post by wide-lite 1000
 I know the F-series was made into the 2000's .
 14   Advertisements / For Sale or Trade / Gold F40T12s  on: February 09, 2026, 07:23:58 PM 
Started by Lcubed3 - Last post by Lcubed3
There is a man near me who has 4 cases of Industrial Gold F40T12s.

Last time I negotiated a price of $100 for one case. Anyone interested?
I am willing to sell one tube at a time if there is enough interest.
 15   Lamps / Vintage & Antique / Re: TELAM Reflector Mercury Lamp  on: February 09, 2026, 05:58:47 PM 
Started by Oprawy Uliczne - Last post by Olav
Thanks for your contribution and welcome.

A small addition to your lamps with some technical data from the waste paper:


Source: Katalog Opraw Oswietleniowych 33 J

These LRR and LRFR lamps from TELAM and later POLAM in their old form are rare. A few of these lamps exist in some collections.
 16   Lamps / Modern / Re: Does Transporting BT-shaped Mercury Lamps Cause Looseness?  on: February 09, 2026, 05:30:47 PM 
Started by Maxim - Last post by Multisubject
Holy crud! My heart would be absolutely POUNDING if that happened to me lol! Thank goodness the lamp is okay, and very interesting that the rattle stopped.

I guess percussive maintenance is the key to rattle elimination...
 17   Lamps / Modern / Re: Does Transporting BT-shaped Mercury Lamps Cause Looseness?  on: February 09, 2026, 05:08:26 PM 
Started by Maxim - Last post by Maxim
@James — thanks for the explanation. Actually, something pretty funny happened. Was walking up the stairs with one of these lamps (Westinghouse H39KB-175) and the lamp, plus its sleeve, rolled down carpeted stairs in what I could only describe in slow motion. Well, lo and behold, it no longer rattles! Not a sound when I whack it from any side.
Though, I would say the arc tube is now about 1-2° off center in the vertical axis, though I guess that's the price I paid for no rattling. :lol:

And also interesting that GE engineers claimed that they could identify which company made what lamp based on sound alone. Which is also interesting because very few, if any, of my USA-made GE lamps rattle or vibrate. Made in Hungary/China, however? Different story.

Also, those GE engineers must've sat in a circle one day and laughed hysterically at the failure that was Philips' transition to ED-shaped lamps! Because every single one that I have rattles to no end, and loudly at that.  ;D
 18   Advertisements / Wanted / Flourescent Can Trim  on: February 09, 2026, 03:30:01 PM 
Started by stillaintjeff24 - Last post by stillaintjeff24
I need help finding some white 6” econolight trims for my flourescent cam lights. I have 4, and I forgot to buy them when I got the cans themselves. They are 4 pin 2x13 watt cfl cans.
 19   Lamps / Modern / Re: Is there any good led bulb left?  on: February 09, 2026, 01:51:40 PM 
Started by Bulbman256 - Last post by Ash
Last year i bought (for a bulk price of 1 ILS/lamp) the entire remaining stock of REALLY old MR16 LED lamps from my wholesaler. Anything from a bunch of 5mm LEDs in an MR16 housing (some are in fact glass ones from Halogen production), to the somewhat later ones with finned aluminum body and 3..4 "1W" LEDs in the front. I have not put any of them to a life test (and dont plan to)

Back in the day those and similar lamps had lifespans in the order of 3..8 years. Faiure modes were usually due to capacitors :

The lamps with many 5mm LEDs were virtually all powered by an X capacitor ballast. The most common failure was EOL of that capacitor by repeated fault clearing, which would make the lamp go dim as it ages. Some had also single LEDs fail (possibly due to current spikes during the capacitor faults ?)

The ones with higher power LEDs do have a small switching power supply inside. Most of those would fail from failing electrolytic capacitors and sometimes from LED failures as well

Virtually all new LED lamps i see fail are LED failures - Be it in filament lamps, snow cones, tubes, or the lower end of integrated luminaires

Snow cones i haven't seen any that last for a reasonable time OR put out good light. To me they are as good as "a lamp for temporary use without risk of glass to smash". With this said, i have some stock of snow cones i got for this exact use in a festoon string. (Globalux, the cheapened down version of Eurolux from the same company, but still a whole lot better than the $1-grade ones)

On the good side - i have a 4W E14 golfball filament, that had been running for its 5th year of 24*365 in a large enclosed globe. (recently taken out of service due to moving things around and intentions to repurpose the globe for something else, the lamp is still good)

 20   Lamps / Modern / Re: Is there any good led bulb left?  on: February 09, 2026, 01:06:26 PM 
Started by Bulbman256 - Last post by Maxim
K-lite (Philips) has been horrible to me. Once Philips switched away from their purple-and-white toned packaging, quality turned to crap. Any modern glass K-lite product WILL fail within a year.

For example, I installed 6 Philips high-CRI, high-efficiency WarmGlo glass LEDs. Lo and behold, 5/6 examples failed within a 6 month span. The previous Ledvance 8.5W Snowcones? 6 years. And I only replaced them because they were starting to dim out.

My advice is to source NOS products from the likes of Philips, Osram-Sylvania, Feit, and even TCP. Because the modern stuff is simply not good. The best luck I've had with modern LED products are Ledvance's line of A19 glass and snowcone LEDs.

All of our "legacy" LEDs are still lighting, 10 years later at this point. FEIT 11.5-13.5W BR30s in the white-and-gold 4pks are in every recessed can in the house and REFUSE to fail. Etc.

I would go for something old enough to still be built to a good standard, and something new enough so it at least makes ~70lm/W.

Oh, and right as I was typing this out, the middle Philips SceneSwitch flickered wildly and then went out. Quite poetic.
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