Halogen globes, safety wire/etc.

[JD Hartman]

"Never use this lighting fixture without a safety glass or safety wire in from of the globe", probably everyone has seen such a warning on open face and Fresnel fixtures. I don't nor do I advocate operating any fixture in a dangerous manner, but......

 

Who has actually experienced a Halogen globe failure which resulted in an "explosion", a shower of red hot glass or a broken Fresnel lens? I've had several globes fail from being touched or contaminated from hand oils, bugs, dirt, etc., but the failure usually is less spectacular, just a bubble in the glass envelope. I know that Ship over on the ControlBooth forum maintains a Hall of Shame of failed globes. Don't recall that he has any exploding bulb stories either.

 

Your stories?

[Stuart Brereton]

I saw a Redhead globe fail once years ago. Wasn't exactly spectacular, but it did spray hot glass about 2 feet in front of it. Luckily it was behind a diff frame at the time.

[Matthew Parnell]

Have seen lots of spacelight globes have an uncontained failure, spray the smaller bits of glass that get through the grille everywhere and lead to having to replace the silk 'dot', surprisingly in all cases i have seen, the skirt itself was undamaged.

 

The old pepper 100s and arri 150 fresnels are reknown for bigs bangs, generally when handled whilst on and hot.

 

Have replaced lenses and reflectors on 5ks and a couple tweenies, pups and probably others I can't remember.

 

It does happen. Some globes are more problematic than others. I'm not sure if being 240v over here in Australia makes the problem worse.