What is the highest wattage incandescent

Question

What is the highest wattage incandescent bulbs made, that will fit a standard socket? Normally the highest I see in most stores is 150W. But I used to work at a school and they had 300W bulbs in their lobby fixtures. I seem to recall seeing 500W bulbs when I was a kid in the

60s. But it seems to me they may have had larger bases.

I am asking this because I just want to know, but also because I am wondering how high the compact florescents will go. I just saw a CF bulb that claims to be equivalent to 150W but uses 42w.

Mark

zxcvbob · Accepted Answer

I think 300W is the largest made in a medium base. (You can get them at Fleet Farm.) 200W is more common.

300's are also made with a mogul base, and anything larger will have a mogul base.

Best regards, Bob

Paul M. Eldridge · Answer

Hi Mark,I believe the largest general service, medium screw (E26) baseincandescent available today is the 300-watt PS30.  Beyond that, youwould be looking at a larger, mogul or E39 base.There are a growing number of increasingly higher wattage CFLs comingto market (e.g., 200-watts) but they're both big and expensive.How big you ask?  This page should give you a pretty good idea:See: much?  Well, this one retails for $78.46 so be careful not to dropit.See: however, this CFL has a mogul base and its light output is (wepresume) considerably more than the 1,200 lumens stated.The medium base 55-watt CFL noted below claims to offer the sameamount of light as a 250-watt incandescent, but that doesn't seem tobe the case.  A Sylvania 200-watt A21 incandescent produces 3,880lumens or 380 lumens more than what is listed here.See:Paul

Joseph Meehan · Answer

I have had 500# (#2 Photoflood) but they have a useful life of about 8 hours as I recall.

I would not recommend putting anything over 150W in a standard socket as they make a lot of heat and most sockets are not ready for it. Same goes for fixtures and their wiring.

hallerb · Answer

normally 300 watts, 300 sometimes limited to mogul that oversized base.

home depot locally carries 250 watt lamps.

the CFare a good deal but dont last nearl;y as long as advertised, still they run cool and save lots of energy

tnom · Answer

I have a light bar used in the 60's for 8mm filming indoors. It usesfour 500 watt bulbs. They have the standard base but the glass isbigger.

powercrazy · Answer

You could not have run that on a 15A fuse or breaker. According to

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need 16.67 Amps (rounded off). You almost need a dedicated 20A circuit.

Now, according to the tv show "Home Improvement" this would be approaching a "BOYS LIGHT", but nothing short of 100,000 WATTS will really get the male testosterone flowing. Just ask Tim Taylor.

100,000 WATTS would need to be a 240 volt bulb and would require a 500amp service, since just one of these bulbs would be sucking 417Amps at 240Volts. Now thats a REAL MANS bulb......

(Of course, it might require more than one large man to carry the huge filament inside that bulb).

The closest single bulb I could find is a 1,500Watt bulb

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That's not powerful enough for "Tool Time" !!!!!!

Joseph Meehan · Answer

..    I'll bet it would get really hot in that lamp for the guys in there carrying the filament inside that bulb.  :-)

What is the highest wattage incandescent

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