Bulk supplier of real lightbulbs

Any electrical wholesaler?

look on ebay. Theres a shop there that is main UK distributor. Get on phone off ebay and call. Great people to deal with.

I buy in 50's usually.

Makro had boxes of 10 Osram bulbs at about £1.48 IIRC...

And what age are you that your calculations show 500 ? How many years are you allowing for your lifetime and what should I allow at 66 ?

Rob

At 66 years of age, using Pi to Integrate the Aversion Tangent of the Co-alescent Coefficient, gives you 2.

:-) LOL

(must resist these urges. Another drink to take the voices out my head) :-)

How would you value this collection for insurance purposes?

Owain

My stockpile came from a mix of stores, mostly Wilkinson Hardware, & various =A31 per packet outlets.

Estimated by counting no of light sockets & guesstimating how long every week each is switched on; then assumed 1000 hours life per bulb. Stocked up with a mix of wattages in proportion to sizes in use

- about 65% 60W + 25% 100W, remainder 'specials' such as candles & other oddballs. Added a few for luck & bought for 25 years. By that time either really effective LEDs will be in use or govt will have come to its senses & reinstated sale of decent light bulbs or it will be someone else's problem.

The specials were the hardest to estimate as there aren't many & in a way are the type I'd least want to run out of.

To avoid having all my eggs in one basket quality wise, I used a mix of sources. Durability over a long storage time is something of a gamble. I have no direct inside knowledge but my guess is that weaknesses could show up in the glass envelopes, filaments, rated life, + you name it... All of which certainly differ between manufacturers & even between different batches or brands from the same maker.

I know of two places that still have a supply of carbon filament lightbulbs in their original packets, circa 1910. But you can't have any :)

They're still made today, for laboratory purposes. The characteristic filament shape is quite often the subject matter for pin-hole camera experiments. I've also seen them in the B&Q decorative lamps section (with lowest efficiency possible, IIRC).

Note that if you switch one on which has a cracked glass and air got in, they explode. (Been there, done that;-)

I have a carbon filament bulb - my grandfather used it in a bedlight from 1931 until 1985, and it still works fine. Last I heard they were still made for shaft tunnels in ships.

Ian

I'm assuming about ten bulbs a year, with a margin of safety ...

Ian

Why do shaft tunnels in ships need carbon filament lamps?

(What is a shaft tunnel in a ship?)

What characteristic makes them desirable for this application?

Chris

ISTR that they're more resistant to vibration than tungsten-filament ones.

Why - what characteristics make them suitable for this application?