Lighting question

[vixpy1]

Any of you electrical wizards help me with a problem?

I have a Futronix lighting controller running two sets of 240v halogens in my living room. They run as two circuits. Recently one of the circuits has been running dimmer than the other, the lights flicker slightly and they keep blowing!

Any ideas?

ta.

[dieselnut]

Absolutly no experiance of the Futonix controller... but from my experiance, when I've swapped out flicking/dim/blowing halogens I've found carbon crud in the lamp holder.

This causes a dodgy connection to the bulb, the filament heats/cools/heats/cools as the power connects and disconnects thereby shortening the life considerably.

May be worth a look... you often have a slight spark eroded dent in the bulb terminals (is it a push with clip or a push-twist?)

Might be of help

Matthew

[vixpy1]

Yeah, but its one whole circuit of 4 bulbs thats doing it.. which makes me think it might the the controller

[mybrainhurts]

Ghosties.....

[dieselnut]

Ahh nuts, there goes my theory

[towman]

mybrainhurts said:

Vixpy`s Ghosties.....

Or Vixpy`s Ghoolies

[mybrainhurts]

What a positively horrible thought......

[dilbert]

I thought this was only a problem with low voltage halogens.

The poor old controller for low voltage systems has one hell of a job to do. If the connection to one lamp is intermittent, I think most of those sorts of contollers would have a hard time keeping the others under control.

For low voltage systems, the lamps themselves have quite a tight tolerance for power output, so if one lamp has an intermittent connection, it's quite common for other lamps to blow.

There's no diagnostic test really. Finding the dodgey connection is trial and error, unless you have a really sensitive ohmmeter.


>> Edited by dilbert on Friday 15th April 01:36