Drivel's new job

"When a bulb blows, 99% of the time the fuse for the lighting circuit will blow or trip also. "

Odd, because that means my fuse should have blown 40 times over the last 3 years with the rate I have to replace crappy R63 mushroom lamps.

Heh - I think you're right about the author ;->

Tim

The message from Tim S contains these words:

Well, it's true here. Even fused bulbs seem to take out the breaker each time.

The message from Guy King contains these words:

Quite likely with MCBs. I shifted to compact florescents because of it. However fuses are a different story. I suspect you would be hard pressed to find even a single instance of a light bulb taking out a fuse. I certainly never happened to me in almost 40 years of house ownership.

Before I got really stuck into the renovation of my old cottage and completely rewired it, we lost the lights a number of times in the winter. Just couldn't explain it - nothing was failing, just the fuse. Until one evening it fell to me to be bathing our 2 year old daughter and as the lights failed so did the nice glow from the bar heater on the wall in the bathroom ! Nuf said !

Rob

Not that consistent with the message either... a sentance later we get "this is picked up by MCB's but generally not fuses."

So it blows fuses 99% of the time except when it doesn't which is most of the time. Hmmm... all he needs add is that "Prescott is a really decent chap" and it would be conclusive! ;-)

People are moaning about the difference between "fuse" and "breaker".

The message from Chris Bacon contains these words:

We have CBs and they are taken out by blubs each time. Even the sort of bulb that has a tiddly fuse inside which is supposed to stop this sort of thing still do it.

hard to find more than one sentence thats anything but drivel on that page

NT

A 150 watt PAR38 took a fuse here once. But it was on a circuit which was loaded to near the limit.

Shame they don't explain how to reset a fuse that's tripped ;-)

MBQ

I've never had a failing GLS lamp trip an MCB (6 A old Type 2) here, but on two occasions failing CFLs have done so. These were Philips CFLs and the failure mechanism involves a nice blow-up on the ballast PCB - a hole blown in the top of the IC and a burnt-out SM resistor. Both went while I wasn't around to hear the bang, but I expect they did go with quite a report!

one would have to buy some 2.5T&E to do that :)

NT

I have them in school and they take out the fuse every time they blow. The lamp holder has a 3 Amp fuse built into and this is the one it takes with it.

Dave

Luckily, that's not often. I've got some here over 25 years old. ;-) And on every day - but they are on a dimmer.