# No hands on the Halogens...



## letechyroyal (May 21, 2008)

We've got two moving spots. One of the halogen bulbs died and we went to read the other one's bulb for our order because they were already two different bulbs. Touching that one, we used our bare hands. Then we put the other one in using our bare hands. In the middle of the our dress, they both died. so we replaced them both, with our bare hands. Then during the show one of them died out because of a bad cable AND the bulb. Then our amateur minds realized... you're not supposed to touch the bulb.


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## PadawanGeek (May 21, 2008)

Yeah, i have always wondered the proper way to insert a halogen lamp. Anyone know?


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## soundlight (May 21, 2008)

PadawanGeek said:


> Yeah, i have always wondered the proper way to insert a halogen lamp. Anyone know?



Wipe it down with an alcohol swab if you touch it, but otherwise, use a small piece of lamp foam to insert the lamp.


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## avkid (May 21, 2008)

If you don''t have the foam, clean cotton or powder free surgical gloves will also work.
(reserve the cotton gloves for this use only, or it defeats the purpose)


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## icewolf08 (May 21, 2008)

Or you can use your shirt sleeve or any glove that prevents the oils from your hands from getting on the lamp. This also goes for any arc lamps or metal halide lamps. Many arc and M/H lamps come with an alcohol swab, use it.


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## derekleffew (May 22, 2008)

icewolf08 said:


> ...Many arc and M/H lamps come with an alcohol swab, use it.


Even if you're positive you haven't touched the glass on a discharge lamp, use the swab to remove any impurities that may have gotten to the envelope during the manufacturing/packing/shipping process.

Halogen lamps used to come with a polyethylene prophylactic that one left on until insertion into the fixture, but I haven't seen those in years.

I usually use my shirt tail. What else is it good for?


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## DaveySimps (May 22, 2008)

I agree with the foam and dedicated pair of gloves method of installation. When in doubt, clean it.

Several years back a new high school in the area was built with a nice performing arts center in it. They had no staff to run the center, and contacted me because they were having problems with their lamps only lasting for one or two shows. Long story short, it turns out that their district custodial staff in charge of lamping the over 100 Source IV instruments were using their bare hands. A bit of training fixed their problem, but they indicated that it was after they went through over $3000 worth of HPL lamps!

~Dave


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## David Ashton (May 24, 2008)

Could I suggest that shirt sleeves and tails are not a good idea especially if one is hot and sweaty and they are full of sweat, a much wiser idea is the piece of plastic wrapping or rubber glove.


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## photoatdv (May 24, 2008)

There is a nice big box of latex gloves and a bottle of rubbing alcohol I use. We didn't even have to buy it. We begged the alcohol from the nurse and the gloves from science.


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## derekleffew (May 24, 2008)

allthingstheatre said:


> Could I suggest that shirt sleeves and tails are not a good idea especially if one is hot and sweaty and they are full of sweat, a much wiser idea is the piece of plastic wrapping or rubber glove.


Who sweats in this business? Valid point, but often rubber gloves are not readily available. For incandescent lamps, the foam or plastic or paper, packing the lamp comes in is probably best. 

If the fixture is in a difficult to access place, or needs to be changed by a person climbing the truss, it's often most efficient to change the lamp while on the deck, and send the complete lamp and cap up on a "snatch line". Spare lamp caps are particularly handy to have on hand.


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## bobgaggle (May 24, 2008)

help me out here. I know that dirt and sweat and oils will cause it to burn out because...

someone told me that the grease in sweat and hand oils will boil on the glass and the heat will cause a fracture. because the lamp is a vacuum (or near vacuum) any weakness in the glass will cause it to blow, right?

or is it some other reason?


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## icewolf08 (May 24, 2008)

bobgaggle said:


> help me out here. I know that dirt and sweat and oils will cause it to burn out because...
> 
> someone told me that the grease in sweat and hand oils will boil on the glass and the heat will cause a fracture. because the lamp is a vacuum (or near vacuum) any weakness in the glass will cause it to blow, right?
> 
> or is it some other reason?



Mostly, the interior of a lamp is not a vacuum, it it filled with a halogen gas, hence why we call them halogen lamps. Thus how we achieve the tungsten-halogen cycle.

The oils from your hands leave a residue on the lamp and as it heat up it weakens the glass. Even the smallest fracture in the envelope can allow oxygen in, and once you introduce O2 the filament will burn up very quickly.

now it wont surprise me to have someone give a better explanation of the process, or say I am wrong.


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## photoatdv (May 25, 2008)

Don't know how it works, but the bulbs that poeple touch sure do turn cool colors!


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## Charc (May 25, 2008)

photoatdv said:


> Don't know how it works, but the bulbs that poeple touch sure do turn cool colors!



Had a recent failed lamp with a really interesting failure I hadn't seen before. The envelope had blown/melted outwards, and the filament was charred black. I was told it had been pouring smoke out of its instrument. When I relamped the instrument I could see the smoke residue from the lamp, it covered the lamp cap and the rear of the instrument, where the smoke had traveled out, I'm scared to look at the reflector.


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## Clifford (May 26, 2008)

We get all of our lamps from OSRAM and they always come in a piece of foam. We just use that and throw it away when we're done. That way nobody else can accidentally use it, especially if it was just placed it on a surface that might have substances the lamps don't agree with.

The weirdest thing I've ever seen was one of the big fresnel lamps that had a 2 inch bubble on it's side. The bubble had ruptured at its apex and the sides were all black. The one I'm most worried about is the fresnel I'm afraid to open. When you move it you can hear all the fragments of glass. We just moved that to our light cemetery.


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## icewolf08 (Jun 7, 2008)

charcoaldabs said:


> When I relamped the instrument I could see the smoke residue from the lamp, it covered the lamp cap and the rear of the instrument, where the smoke had traveled out, I'm scared to look at the reflector.




Clifford said:


> The weirdest thing I've ever seen was one of the big fresnel lamps that had a 2 inch bubble on it's side. The bubble had ruptured at its apex and the sides were all black. The one I'm most worried about is the fresnel I'm afraid to open. When you move it you can hear all the fragments of glass. We just moved that to our light cemetery.



Can I just ask why you guys are afraid to just clean out the units? Charc, any smoke residue will come right off the reflector with a cloth and some alcohol (or other approved cleaning solution which we have at least on thread on). And Clifford, it's just glass, you could open up the unit and vacuum it out or even just dump it out. Just because a lamps breaks doesn't make a unit unusable.


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## Clifford (Jun 16, 2008)

Vacuuming would require a vacuum. I guess I'll look for one at the custodians' when I go back at the end of summer. We tried dumping the pieces out and only a couple little ones came out, nothing like what's creating all the noise. We also have to get the base of the lamp out. It's still in the socket and it doesn't seem to want to move. I'm just short of taking the channel locks to it.

The attachment is for an aside. I have another reason why we don't touch the halogens. And why freshmen need to not open things and then pass them around when they don't know what it is. I'm just glad nobody was cut on the glass. Upside, now I can better display the inards.


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## Wolf (Jun 24, 2008)

Clifford said:


> Vacuuming would require a vacuum. I guess I'll look for one at the custodians' when I go back at the end of summer. We tried dumping the pieces out and only a couple little ones came out, nothing like what's creating all the noise. We also have to get the base of the lamp out. It's still in the socket and it doesn't seem to want to move. I'm just short of taking the channel locks to it.
> 
> The attachment is for an aside. I have another reason why we don't touch the halogens. And why freshmen need to not open things and then pass them around when they don't know what it is. I'm just glad nobody was cut on the glass. Upside, now I can better display the inards.



What happened here. What cause the lamp to no longer be a lamp. I've only seen this when having to brake the envelope on perpus.


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## Clifford (Jun 24, 2008)

It was just handled too roughly by inexperienced people. With what they were doing with it, I'm amazing the envelope is still in one piece, relatively.


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## punktech (Jul 1, 2008)

best blow out i've seen: entire envelope is charred black, but not all one shade, and they sort of swirl. and towards the top, one perfect dome. there appears to be no break in the envelope. we suspect that the lamp was so hot that it couldn't cool fast enough to cause a break in the glass.

my friend Matt got it when our ATD resigned this year. i just got the one that was a manufacturing dud.


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## tech2000 (Jul 2, 2008)

My school theater, we changed a couple lamps in some S4's and the lamp had a couple of huge glass bubbles coming off the side. Plus the glass was black, blue, green, brown. All those colors and the weirdest thing I've seen from a light. Of course, now I'm telling all the new techs to not touch the glass of the lamps anymore.
It's funny because one fresnel we have did the opposite and instead of the lamp dying, the reflector on the inside basically imploded. Not sure what happened.


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## ruinexplorer (Jul 5, 2008)

If you're really adventurous (and have the extra cash), you could grab youself one of these: Best Seat Lamp Insertion Tool, for HPL Lamps

My favorite burnouts were the FEL lamps for the old Berkey-Colortran units. Nice coloration in the burnouts and you could almost check the fingerprints on the lamp the way it would burn.


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## ishboo (Jul 19, 2008)

We have a bulb that someone put in with bare hands, it exploded right where there finger was in a perfect circle it turned some really cool colors and looks really dangerous. I'm thinking of mounting it on our wall with a warning sign.


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