I've also unintentionally hit a 4 foot fluorescent tube on a steel door jamb causing it to lose Vacuum loudy.

Yes--two of them.Involving MH lamps.One was a 100W Philips Ceramic Master Color.Made a muffled "POP"lamp is inside an enclosed fixture.Arc tube destroyed and two holes blown in the outer glass bulb.Have three of these lights-came from a former clothing store-and they turned up at a yard sale!Another-celing fixture from a former shoe store-250W MH.Lamp made a muffled "POP" and arc tube destroyed.The outer bulb was not broken.Didn't happen to me personally-but ato a freind of mine that worked at the Smithsonian Air&Space Museam IMAX theater.The 14Kw Xenon projection bulb blew on him during a show and took out the mirrors in the lamphouse.He said the noise scared everyone in the projection room out of their wits!IMAX had to send a rep from Canada to repair the damage to the projector.

14,000 watts! I've only been to IMAX once in my life and it was many years ago.

In the older IMAX film projector the xenon bulbs were water cooled.Had a glass water jacket around the bulb.The reflector mirrors behind the bulb in the lamphouse have water pipes circulating water behind the mirrors to cool them.The new digital IMAX projectors are Xenon lit-can't remember what the wattage was.The newest generation of IMAX projectors will be lit by RBG lasers impinging on a diffuser network.The lasers replace the Xenon bulbs.I beleive only one of these projectors has been installed-Its kinda quiet how it works and the power drawn by the laser lamp system.No lasers are emitted from the projector.I beleive the projector has been in stalled at a Cinerama theater in Seattle or something like that.Would like to know more how these projectors work.Kodak was working on these before and sold the rights to IMAX.Other projectors are going to be laser lit-saving energy and the hazards of the exploding xenon bulbs-and less UV hazards as well.

Was messing around with an arctube from a small MH lamp once, running it on a 4 lamp F322T8 ballast..I had a glass shield over it which broke...and then the arctube exploded only got hit with one piece quartz!

Only twice: once many years ago around when I started collecting, I got some 12V 6S6 (6W S6 envelope indicator lamps common here in 120V land) lamps thinking that they were 120V/130V.  It blew up when I tested it.
The other time was a defective 300W A25/PS25 GLS lamp that had a leak.  The filament smoked when I tested it for a few seconds before the envelope blew off at the base.

Not so good experiences with dying incandescent lamps here, too. Often with the flash and *tink* everything went dark and one had to walk out to the breaker. But more than once not just that but also (or even only, without triggering the breaker) glass fragments flying around.

Didn't happen to me personally-but ato a freind of mine that worked at the Smithsonian Air&Space Museam IMAX theater.The 14Kw Xenon projection bulb blew on him during a show and took out the mirrors in the lamphouse.He said the noise scared everyone in the projection room out of their wits!

I saw somewhere an account from an audience member: The screen went dark in the very same moment a big boom sounded behind. These high power XBO lamps are obviously particularly violent, much more than the standard 2k ones.


How about it happening live on TV? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BllPZZeKcJ8

Xenon bulbs have blown in conventional 35/70mm projectors used in standard movie houses.And-on YouTube they show someone handling an unpowered Xenon projection lamp--bad things happened there the bulb exploded and peppered the mans hands and face with the quartz shards.Lucky they didn't take out his eyes.So--if you handle these bulbs wear the thick ballastic gloves and vest,and a face mask.Unpowered Xenon bulbs are under high pressure and can blow.Also keep the bulb in its plastic case adn box when not in use.Have one in my collection-and that is where it stays!!A projectionist freind gave it to me.2500W Christie bulb.A common size.would be for lighting a 35MM projector and 25Ft screen.With Xenon bulbs for projectors usually its 1000W for every 10Ft screen width.That is why drive ins usually used 6-7Kw lamps.And that size lamp would be for indoor "hardtop" 70MM projectors and 40-60Ft screens.And of course when the Xenon bulb is lit and hot-the pressure goes up even more!!

I had a GE appliance bulb in my fridge and it arced and went pop when I went to grab a drink. It arced because I saw the metal globules leave imprints on the glass. I also had a f32t8 tube with both electrodes open circuit, so I wired an advance optanium ballast for 4x overdrive. It wasn't an explosion per se, but the glass at the end glowed bright orange until a pinhead-sized hole formed, causing vacuum loss and then the tube cracked along it's circumference.