How Many Bulbs Have You Killed

[MicroE]

I have a bunch of LED lights and hardly ever use an incan. I'm always afraid that I (or one of my kids) will drop the torch and break the filament. With some of these lamp assemblies running $25 each, I just don't want to carry them.
But, am I being realistic?
How many bulbs have you killed by dropping the light?
I am still on the fence about grtting a SF M3 and I need some convincing.---Marc

 

[carrot]

I kept hearing about Mag bulbs being really "fragile"... so I did my own (very unscientific) tests. I threw the Maglite mini at the floor 20 times, having to reseat the bulb twice, but otherwise no damage to the bulb. Then I chucked it down the stairs, making sure that it'd bounce on most of the steps. This one I also did 20 times. Bulb still works. ...Did I mention that it was lit the entire time?

Considering the M3 lamp assembly is shock-isolated, I wouldn't worry too much about it. The M3 is beautiful... it's on my list of lights to buy after an E1e/E1L.

 

[Double_A]

Wow your gonna let your kids play with your M3?


Personally the only lamps I routinely burn out are on Mini-Mags.

 

[Delvance]

My G2, when it was running the P60 lamp, was dropped LOTS of times. It sat on the side of my dresser...for me to get to my pc, i have to walk past the dresser, constantly knocking the G2 off and causing a 1/2 metre fall. It's all good.

And the M3 will have even better shock protection.

 

[CLHC]

How many bulbs/lamp assemblies went kaputz. . .

A TerraLux TLE-5 gave out on me, not by dropping, but by change of batteries

More than a couple of Mini Maglite's "stock" bulbs

A SureFire M6 HOLA—because I forgot to clean off the "oily" residue from my fingers

A SureFire M3 HOLA—because somebody at work wanted to "see" it without the head on and dropped the LA

A SureFire 6P HOLA—because, I don't know why but it flashed

Three (3) SureFire 10X Dominator HOLA—was sent back to SureFire for diagnosis no RMA was needed since they asked for it to be shipped back

So far so good, and no problems for this length of time.

Enjoy!

 

[chiphead]

None to date, I'm still running the original bulbs in my SF/6P and Maxfire units.

chiphead

 

[chrwe]

I dropped a SF.C3 with a lit P90 in it from around 4' on concrete ground once. It hit the ground with the edge of the bezel. The LA is still fine, the bezel suffered a minor nick.

 

[andrewwynn]

dropped some pretty high-power incans.. only had to re-center.. but they weren't on at the time.. when a nephew chipped the lens in my Mag100.. the next time i ran it 4 min. straight the lens broke from thermal stress though.

I have blown about 8 WA lamps since august.. maybe 10-12 actually when including the ones in 'under development' projects.. when three 1185s blew within 3 days from 'too fresh' of batteries, that's when i put hotdriver development into high-gear.

The lamps are tougher than some let you believe, but will never be in the same league as LED of course.

-awr

 

[MicroE]

Wow your gonna let your kids play with your M3?

My 7-year old son loves the Gladius and the U2. Should I force the kids to use 2AA mags? No way!

 

[Icebreak]

2 Carleys
10 Radio Shacks
12 Mags
25 or so Welch Allyns bi-pin and potted.
0 Pelicans

One of the WAs was a shock-break in a tip-over with a Mag6C that wasn't on. Never dropped a lit torch. But then I'm not an electrician, plumber, elevator tech, LEO or member of the armed services. Probably 4 or 5 WAs blew from fingerprint oil before I knew to keep them clean. All the rest were from experimenting trial/error. Some insta-flash, some sizzlers, some poofs, some pops, some exploded.

So, maybe $260.00 worth of lamps since 2003.

Sometimes when I walk over to the HotWire bench the spare lamps jiggle and rattle like some many nervous, glass-bodied insects.

But now I know what works. All but two of my HotWires have achieved eureka white beams.

I have only one Surefire, an A2. I use it often. Maybe 10 cycles on the original bulb. No sign of dimming. I use a ripoffs holster and lanyard when I carry it so no drops so far.

I know that wasn't the answer you were looking for but your thread title was hard to resist.

I like LEDs and Incans both. I don't think LEDs can compete with incans for the power I want in certain situations. I don't think incans can compete with LEDs for durability even when both are driven at safe levels.

 

[greenLED]

...
umm...
...

1 or 2?

 

[Lips]

WA1331 Today

Testing new Lith I pack charger out. Slapped freshly topped off pack in a FM700L and instaflash !!! Softstart is looking better and better...

 

[andrewwynn]

check out the hotdriver.. .. it's a perfect match for the 1.5D and the 1331. Yeah like i said.. i built the hotdriver because i was really getting tired of blowing bulbs just because the batteires are fully charged.. that's just crazy!

-awr

 

[InfidelCastro]

Actually the only bulb I've had take a dump on me at a bad time lately was an LED.

 

[andrewwynn]

LEDs are def. not indestructible.. I've blown plenty of those too.

-awr

 

[LuxLuthor]

WA1331 Today

Testing new Lith I pack charger out. Slapped freshly topped off pack in a FM700L and instaflash !!! Softstart is looking better and better...

I have several of FM's 700L (1331) and 1300L (1185), all with his bi-pin holder and everything else stock as he sent it. I have never flashed any bulbs, and have turned them on IMMEDIATELY 20-30 times after freshly charging 3x168s Pilas in the 700L, and 9x17500 AW's in the 1300L.

I don't understand why so many flash their bulbs in these FM Mags. To me, his stock Mags and bi-pin holders are a foolproof setup.

 

[Lips]

I don't understand why so many flash their bulbs in these FM Mags. To me, his stock Mags and bi-pin holders are a foolproof setup.

Pack measured 12.6v POOOOOF !!! The FM700L is awesome.

 

[LuxLuthor]

Are you using his bi-pin holder and stock setup from FM? All his other parts (spring, switch) are stock maglite which he confirmed to me.

 

[Lips]

Are you using his bi-pin holder and stock setup from FM? All his other parts (spring, switch) are stock maglite which he confirmed to me.

Yep, bi-pin chromie! I was using un-protected cells though, Pillas on the way. Don't know if that makes a difference. :shrug: My understanding is the 1331 bulb is not as robust in handling instaflash as the 1185 but will give you a tighter beam.

 

[andrewwynn]

If you havn't poppsed a bulb, you aren't pushing them very hard (if you use direct-drive).. just plain laws of physics at work. we 'envelope pushers' have discovered that regulation is required to really get the most out of a hotwire light..

Here are some examples:

1331 from 10.8V LiON solution:
stock switch: 720/468 Lumen
KIU solution: 788/512 Lumen (flashing virtually a guarantee!)
3 series PILA: 683/444
awr hotdriver & raw LiON.. 798/519 (no flashing risk).

17% more output with the hotdriver than stock and PILA.. and that's only because holding back to 10.8V.. raw cells could output 11.1 for a good 20-30% of the runtime, and with soft-start the 1331 should handle it.

ok, now for the 1185 solution:
stock switch: 1132/736
KIU solution: 1301/846
PILA & stock: 1028/668
awr hotdriver: 1360/880 L

31% more output capability with the hotdriver vs stock switch and PILA cells.

The pila cells have a noticable amount of series resistance, it has a large impact on the survivability of lamps when direct driving, but a sizeable impact on light output.

The efficacy of incandescent is greatly affected by how hard they are driven.. example.. the 1185 lamp pushed to 11.1V re-rates to 35.9 lumen/watt.. now turn that down to rated voltage of 9.6V.. and the output is 27 lumen/watt.. drop down to a mere 9V and you are down to below 24 L/W.

another way to word this.. to output 1/10th the light.. it takes 1/3 the power... reversing that to extremes gets the output per watt 'off the scale' and where the hotwire lights really start to 'sing'.. but the tungsten is so close to the melting point that with the 17% over voltage from fresh cells.. it's easy to blow the bulbs if you push the envelope.

-awr