Kitchen bulbs constantly blowing

[efchutchy]

Hi all. Was hoping for a bit of help please. There are two light fittings in my kitchen and one of them has blown out about 6 or 7 times in the past couple of years. Would there be a reason why this keeps happening on one light fitting but not the other? Tried using different bulbs but no difference, the bulbs will work for a few weeks/months typically then blow.

 

[chivers67]

Carefully Check there are no lose connections in the fitting.

 

[RF Lighting]

Have a look on the back of the failed lamps to check for any signs of burning / arcing / pitting on the contact pads.

The yellowing to the lamp in your picture suggests it’s been used for a substantial amount of time.

A good quality LED lamp should last for a decent amount of time.
In my experience Philips branded lamps seem to be well made.

<edit> autocorrect fail

 

[chivers67]

The yellowing is probably due to it being in a kitchen too.

 

[efchutchy]

Have a look on the back of the failed lamps to check for any signs of burning / arcing / pitting on the contact pads.

The yellowing to the lamp in your picture suggests it’s been used for a substantial amount of time.

A good quality LED lamp should last for a decent amount of time.
In my experience Philips branded lamps seem to be well made.

<edit> autocorrect fail

Cheers, will take a look in the morning when the lighting in the room is a bit better

 

[efchutchy]

The yellowing is probably due to it being in a kitchen too.

Definitely signs of burning etc
I have heard the 'pop' a few times in the past and sometimes there's been a little smoke with burning smell to go with it

 

[chivers67]

Yes much more obvious signs of heating in those photos!

 

[securespark]

Also, I'm not sure that brand is a quality one. They tend to fail prematurely.

 

[mattylad]

The "it's in a kitchen" may also be a reason why these fail.
As a kitchen can have fumes, oils/fats etc. in the air when cooking then perhaps an unsealed lamp is not the best to use?
There appears to be gaps around the tube itself where the ingress of stuff can get into it, if that happens and it's getting on the PCB then it can cause tracking and premature failure.

Have you considered trying LED lamps instead? OR perhaps look at sealed fittings.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Have you considered trying LED lamps instead? OR perhaps look at sealed fittings.

Lighting our north facing kitchen adequately, has always been a problem and changing lamps used to be a far to regular task. I tried various solutions, including down-lighters, supplemented by hidden 6 foot florescent fittings lighting the ceiling etc.. A couple of years ago I swapped two pendant lights in the kitchen, for a pair of these - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/253999720189

They produce an ideal spread of light, especially so with both turned on, with no shadows. They have also been 100% reliable so far. I ordered two, tried them, found them ideal, so ordered another two as spares. They are in two parts, a base and the actual lamp. The lamp just pushes onto the base, making them no more difficult to replace should they fail, than an ordinary lamp.

 

[Londoner2]

I would say like the other commentator check for loose wiring in the pendant hose, this happened to me once, one cold evening i smelt burning and teh light started to flicker, i switched it off. Same one as yours and noticed it was hot and slight burn marks.

Replaced it thinking its low quality with a led bulb from screwfix, that worked fine, however after a year i went to replace 2 pendants in teh lounge, the one which shot the bulb initially, wiring had come loose internally which accounted for the old bulb to burn out.

 

[ericmark]

Have a look on the back of the failed lamps to check for any signs of burning / arcing / pitting on the contact pads.

The yellowing to the lamp in your picture suggests it’s been used for a substantial amount of time.

A good quality LED lamp should last for a decent amount of time.
In my experience Philips branded lamps seem to be well made.

<edit> autocorrect fail

In my experience Philips lamps failed premature. I had a leak, which resulted in new matching light fittings in living and dinning room, and moving to E14 bulbs 16 x 8 watt Philips golf ball, CFL claimed to have a really long life, I seem to remember expected 5 years, having changed them all together we knew the date, and within the year half had failed, we bought really cheap golf ball bulbs from Home Bargains which had a larger ball so 6 in the dinning were changed, but although the dinning room now had not problem, the living room with Philips bulbs continued to lose bulbs, and we went to candle LED and never changed a bulb again due to failure until we left the house.

LED bulbs have lasted that well over last 8 years since I started to use them, I can list their failures on one hand, I had some 0.58 watt G5.3 MR16 fail from Pound World, really they were toys, a 5 foot replacement for a fluorescent tube failed within 18 months of fitting, and a G9 bulb failed, which I opened to see what was inside, found a dry joint, fixed and put back into service. I have one or two E14 candle which have discoloured, but the lack of failures has resulted in a bulb draw of spares which are just taking up room, we always stocked spare bulbs, as in the days of tungsten it was a regular job changing them, but I have a stock now including pearl tungsten we bought before they stopped being made, as LED just don't seem to fail.

However @RF Lighting saying Philips are good, seems to point in us getting a bad batch, and I do seem to have got bulbs in batches, my parents had a load from their energy supplier all came together, I got a load from B&M Bargains when we moved in here, and the bulbs @efchutchy show do seem to have had an over heating problem, so wonder if they have all come from the same batch?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

LED bulbs have lasted that well over last 8 years since I started to use them, I can list their failures on one hand, I had some 0.58 watt G5.3 MR16 fail from Pound World, really they were toys, a 5 foot replacement for a fluorescent tube failed within 18 months of fitting, and a G9 bulb failed, which I opened to see what was inside, found a dry joint, fixed and put back into service. I have one or two E14 candle which have discoloured, but the lack of failures has resulted in a bulb draw of spares which are just taking up room, we always stocked spare bulbs, as in the days of tungsten it was a regular job changing them, but I have a stock now including pearl tungsten we bought before they stopped being made, as LED just don't seem to fail.

My experience with LED's is exactly the same, not forgetting the savings on the energy bills. CFL's are not that much better than tungsten lamps, more light per watt, but much more expensive per lamp and they take a few seconds to reach full brightness. I restrict CFL's to the less used locations, at least until my stock has been used up.

 

[securespark]

I have boxes of CFLs in the garage that I have written off.

LEDs are so much brighter, have no warmup time, are cheaper to run and more attractive that the decision to ditch CFLs is a no-brainer.

 

[ericmark]

The biggest complaint about LED lights is you don't know until after you buy if smooth output or pulsed output, these two bulbs both fit the same bulb holder (G9) the first one has a tendency the flicker, the second has an electrolytic capacitor to smooth the rectified DC so no flicker, but there is nothing in the spec to say which is which.

The CFL could also flicker, and like the LED flash when turned off, but I never noticed it with the CFL but have with LED.

On the plus side I find the colour under LED lamps far better than fluorescent, but the suck it an see approach is really not good enough. I have not worked out why LED lamps with electronic switches flicker to start with, my switches you can hear click, so clearly a relay makes the circuit, but bulbs under 5 watt tend to have a shimmer or flicker, and it seems to be down to bulb size not load, 5 x 2.2W shimmer, 1 x 6W does not.