ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Bulbs Blowing Frequently

Did Europe actually increase the voltage to 230, or is it like the Australian and UK 230V and "on paper" only?
Incandescent bulbs are much more voltage critical than say heating elements or motors and one would presume the voltage stamped on the bulb is what voltage it is meant to run at [ie. a 230V bulb means that...not 220 or 240 in disguise].
My guess is that's why Aussie bulbs (and I have seen somewhere also UK ones...can anyone confirm?) are still stamped with 240V because that's what the supply voltage really is despite what might be written in the pages of bureacracy. Real 230V bulbs sold here would have a slightly shorter life and would probably result in complaints to various consumer protection agencies.

Until relatively recently in Ireland our bulbs were mostly rated 220V. The voltage is now nominally 230V and tends to be somewhere between 215 and 235V in most instances.

I wonder if it's possible that the bulb manufacturer is just making 220V bulbs and sticking 230V labels on them?

It's quite possible that they havent' changed their specs at all.

240V bulbs used in Ireland tended to last for ridiculously long times. There were stories of people crossing the border to northern ireland to pick up bulbs as they lasted far longer.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 09-19-2005).]

Depends on where you are. At home in Vienna and in our home in a small (population 460) next to the Czech border I always get close to 235V. At school in Vienna (roughly 5km from home, but has it's own 10kV to 220/380V) I never got more than 225 to ground and 382 between phases.
Different brands of bulbs had a widely varying life expectancy here. For some time we had cheap, IIRC Patria bulbs that would blow frequently, now we have Philips that last almost forever.

Hang on a second,
Lets look at the design of a modern light bulb.
10 years ago, the filaments were thicker and used double coil technology.
We can't compete here in NZ or for the matter any Non-asian country, in manufacturing the bulbs here.
Our last bulb factory closed in 1999.
Add to that the fact that bulbs had a fuse in them too, now they don't.
What annoys me most of all is the fact that these bulbs are advertised as "Long-life" bulbs, knowing full well that the customer will be purchasing a new bulb at the next voltage surge.
I've been to houses where they burned out 10 lamps with a flick of a switch.

Hi guys,

I wrote on both of these ages ago already - after being flooded with reports of "short lamnp life". We're about to move our clocks again and, strangely, this is when the emails will start up again as this is when lamps are run for longer each day.

see here and
here

M.

Excellent point on the handling of bulbs there Marc.

How many times has anyone seen the shelf-stackers in the supermarket drop a box?

"Oops! Oh well, doesn't appear to be broken, shove them on the shelf."

We used to be able to get the "Performer" brand lamps via K mart in New Zealand, rated at 240 - 250 Volts. I have checked their life with hour meters and they seem to last for around 2300 hrs before failing.
At promotions they were sold for around NZ$1 ea. The voltage in West Auckland is usually around the 230 - 236 Volts range.
Normal 230-240 V lamps in the house I have checked usually last for about 800 hrs. A date written on the base of the lamp is also a very good idea, because we forget sometimes when things were replaced last time.

A habit I picked up from my late father is to put a small sticker with the date of replacement on batteries too. It's especially handy on things where the battereies are replaced only very infrequently, such as quartz clocks, test meters, etc.

Personally I buy my bulbs from Ideal Electrical.
I gave up on supermarket lamps years ago, the quality between two bulbs doesn't seem to be consistent.
Sure, you might pay a wee bit more per bulb, but as they say, you get what you pay for.
BTW I was at the supermarket getting the groceries the other day, bulbs were $0.45 each, if I remember correctly, they had a brand name I've never heard of before.

Today we worked on a big fan unit, doing all kinds of physical metering. At school Voltage is usually low, like 378V between phases. But today we got 355... I suspect a faulty meterm but still it was hefty.