Should be simple, but....

[emmahay]

In my bathroom are two halogen 50W spotlights. One of them stopped working, so I tried a new bulb. It didn't work. I tried another one. That didn't work either, so then I tried another. That did work. So I put the original bulb back in and that suddenly worked too. All very odd. Generally the light didn't work, but very occasionally it would come into life after the switch had been on a while. I assumed it was a dodgy transformer, so bought a new one and wired it in. Simple stuff. The light didn't work. After the light switch had been on for, maybe, half an hour, sometimes the dodgy light would come on again. But if you turned it off then on again, it wouldn't necessarily work. I am at my wit's end.
Has anyone got any ideas?
Thanks in advance for ANY help/ideas etc.

 

[Activ8]

Have you tried swopping the bulbs over into the other socket ?? Maybe its not the bulbs but a faulty holder or even a bad earth ??

Dave

 

[Luckyphil]

It`ll more than likely be corrosion in the Lampholder , change the Lampholder/Flying lead and all should be okey dokey

Lucky

PS - Often happens with Std Downlights are fitted in Bathrooms due to condensation etc[/u]

 

[Lectrician]

Maybe its not the bulbs but a faulty holder or even a bad earth ??

Dave

 

[ericmark]

Very likely lamp holder. First met these in 1970 in traffic lights and the 12V lamp has never changed since just too much power and heat for small pins and the fail on regular basis.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Or it could be a loose connection....

 

[emmahay]

after hours spent on the top of the ladder, sweating over the various components, buying new transformers, buying new bulb holders, all of which tested fine with my tester, I finally sussed it out that it was the secondary live circuit that had slipped out of the housing on the transformer on the OTHER light (ie the one that worked!)
So Ban-all-sheds - you were right - thank you all so much for all your help. So much more satisfying that paying somebody a fortune to fix the problem in 4 minutes!!!