I have two incandescent bulbs, respectively 1000w/1500w and one 24v 250w halogen lamp.
I am wondering what operating voltage works with incandescent bulbs. It says only 125v/1000W on its body, 125v/1500W. The socket size seems E39 or E40 which is bigger than usual one.
Does 125v/1000W means that I should use the transformer to supply 125v DC? or can I use ordinary 220VAC so the bulb will be applied 110VDC on each moment (ideally?..I know probably 220VAC doesn't mean always +-110V) therefore it is within spec? If latter one is correct thinking, it might be easiest for me..
FYI, the bulbs are quite old models and I got this in Europe. So I assumed mostly I could use with 220vac but I am bit confused with 125v/1000W label. (in case this is American model and supposed to supply by 110v transformer..
Also, to calculate the current in case 125v/1000W bulb,
1000 W = 125V X I
I=8A
If it says 125V it means VAC
1000W/125V(rms)=8A (RMS)
Incandescent bulbs have a filament resistance (cold), (which of course increases when hot) but it means you can
ohm it out to check it to see if it is open.
Halogen:
"You can test a filament light bulb (a halogen bulb or a replaceable Christmas tree light bulb, but not a low energy bulb) with the lowest or next to lowest resistance range. You should get a reading of tens or hundreds of ohms only. (This is the resistance of the filament when cold."
A 1000W or 1500W transformer (or even a 250W transformer) isn't economical so it's not really practical to use them at all.
I don't remember if I've ever seen a 125V bulb. I have seen 130V bulbs and they are usually used here in the U.S. to get longer life when running from 120V. When you run a bulb at lower than it's rated voltage, of course it uses less wattage but it's less efficient with a greater proportion of the energy generating heat and less generating light.
I'd guess the 24V bulb is designed for a something that uses BIG 24V batteries (like maybe a boat). Incandescent bulbs work equally with AC or DC.
It seems really high current, am I correct?
Yeah, it IS a lot of current! Of course, a 1000W European bulb uses half as much current.
If you connect it to 220V it will blow up.
Yeah, it will get SUPER BRIGHT for a short time. And when you double the voltage you also double the current so the 1000W bulb becomes 4000W.
I was a restaurant cook for 12 years until 1979. I didn't know what a resistor was. I came home from my night shift as a broiler cook at Victoria Station in Universal City (where Universal Studios is located). When I got home to
my apartment one Friday night. my roommate was watching TV. As I entered , I noticed a box on the diningroom table . It said "Heathkit Home Study Electronics Course #4: Electronic Circuits" (Keeping in mind that I didn't know what a transistor was) Out of curiosity, I asked my roommate what it was "What's this ?" (yeah I know, the title would be self explanatory if you knew what electronics was) He replied "Oh it's one of those kits where you can build circuits by following step by step instructions. A coworker loaned it to me. I played with it for awhile and got bored. You can borrow it if you promise to put all the parts back in the box." It was late Friday night and I had
nothing to do and didn't own a TV so I I picked up the box , walked into my room and closed the door. Next morning at 8:00 am I walked out of my room and set the box back on the table. My roommate was scrambling eggs for his breakfast and he looked at me and said "So? What did you think about it?" Without hesitating I proceeded to explain about 15 circuits in great detail The only one I still remember was a class-A Push Pull Audio Amplifier. When I stopped talking he just stared at me speechless, and when I stopped talking he said "I have no idea what you just said but I have a pretty good idea that you do !" "I think you should seriously consider a career change. I didn't know what to say so I went back in my room and thought about what he said. I had noticed a lot of restaurants were hiring Mexican cooks and I could see the writing on the wall so I decided I should cross train into electronics. I went to the Heathkit store and told the manager I decided to learn electronics and asked him what I needed. He asked what I meant by "learn" . " You mean as a hobby or a serious career change ?" I said the latter. He told me what equipment and courses I needed and the cost. ($485) I had no savings because I lived check to check and no credit (never heard of it) so I went to Household Finance Loan Co and borrowed it using my brand new $850 RB Furniture chick magnet sofa as collateral. From that day on I spent daytimes hanging out at the Heathkit store and the electronic component stores buying components and cookbooks (since it made sense, me being a cook and all) Think of someone used to buying produce buying components with the same mindset that if you don't know what to do with a vegetable you buy a cookbook. So when I saw a sign in a store that said "NS LM307H metal can high performance Op Amps normally $3.95/ON SALE for 25 cents each" I asked the clerk how many he had. He said 166 total. I said "I'll take 'em" He said "What are you going to do with 166 op amps ?" I replied "Well I'm going to start by finding out what an op amp is vy buy one your thickest cookbook on op amps (Walter Jung's Oo Amp Cookbook) It wasn't long before the Heathkit Store manager offered me a job. One saturday I was working there and a guy came in to pick up his HW-101 Ham Transceiver. I told him it had arrived from the factory where we sent it for repair (for the SECOND time) but it had to be tested by the technician (who didn't cone in till 10:30am) He was really anxious to get it back so when he told me it was easy to test it I believed him (after all , I only had two weeks experience in the electronics industry. So grabbed what I thought was a 13.8Vdc P.S. , plugged it in and turned it on, There was a silent blinding flash like a small nuclear detonation that startled me. I had the immediate suspicion that it wasn't supposed to do that so I looked at the label on the power supply and it said 400V. The story doesn't end there so I'll have to finish it some other time. Strangely enough, I was to later find out that it was not only my first mistake, but also my first repair. As it turned out, the reason his unit had been to the factory twice was that it had a PCB internal short and (which, in my ignorance , I managed to vaporize in a blinding flash. After replacing the blown tubes with burned in tubes from the store demo, the tech tested it and I could hear him saying something to the effect of "I read you 5 by 5 Hawaii.." (we were in Southern California). The customer picked it up and we didn't see him again for 3 weeks and when he came in he looked unshaved, smelled like he hadn't bathed in 3 weeks and his eyes looked bloodshot, and he looked like he hadn't slept in 3 weeks. I inquired how his Transceiver was doing (as you can imagine , I had a personal interest in that) to
which he replied it was fantastic and to his knowledge , he had gone from being the owner of a nonfunctional
piece of equipment to being the owner of the best HW-101 in the whole valley and maybe all of California.
(I guess those burned in tubes helped). He said his kids weren't speaking to him and his wife was ready to divorce
him because he was on it every waking moment. I told him I was glad to hear everything was fine (with the
equipment anyway) and he left. And that's how I know. I blew up a transceiver and fixed it in 5 mS.
an I use ordinary 220VAC so the bulb will be applied 110VDC on each moment (ideally?..I know probably 220VAC doesn't mean always +-110V) therefore it is within spec? If latter one is correct thinking, it might be easiest for me..
Sorry, 220Vac is not an AC voltage that goes from -110V to +110V.
220Vac is what is called an RMS value and has a waveform that goes from, 310V to -310V, these are the peak voltages.
Google AC voltage RMS to get a better understanding of AC and voltage levels.
It says only 125v/1000W on its body, 125v/1500W. The socket size seems E39 or E40 which is bigger than usual one.
This will be because of the current required at those voltages to supply the power.
My parents divorced when I was 5 (long story) . Result was my sister and I lived only with my mother , who, thanks to my father who one day decided to leave to become a doctor (he was a career salesman at the time) , had to learn English from scratch (she was a young attractive TWA ticket counter employee in Costa Rica when my Dad met her
on one of his many business trips). She also had to learn another skill because TWA didn't have much use for non-English-speaking ticket counter employees in the US. Result was my mom was too busy to teach my sister and I the usual stuff and she was always in her room studying so she wasn't around to notice me sticking my fingers in the empty lamp sockets from which she had removed the bulbs and placed on the kitchen counter to remind herself to buy more. Having been ordered not to disturb her I wasn't at liberty to ask her why I felt so weird when I stuck my fingers in the empty sockets while exploring the carpeted livingroom. It was a relatively long time before that mystery was solved. Did I mention that when my mom noticed a lamp that didn't turn on when she rotated the knurled brass switch that she simply removed the bulb without rotating the switch again leaving it in the on position ?
I assume you are just "playing around"? If you have and serious/useful purpose for 1000/1500W bulbs, you should just get the correct bulbs for where you live. It will save you time, trouble, and money now and it will save you more time, trouble, and money when the bulbs burn-out and need to be replaced.
So... I have an idea!!!! If you put a diode (rectifier) in series you'll have 120V RMS. I've made a simple 120V high/low light dimmer with a diode. You'll still have twice the rated peak voltage and twice the peak current so the lamp life might be shortened but the average power, and the light and heat output, will be as-designed for the 1000/1500W bulb.
The peak voltage of 240V RMS is about 322V and that doesn't change with the diode. You're just getting a positive or negative peak instead of both. So if I've done my calculations correctly (please double-check!) that's about 34 Amps peak for the 1500W bulb and your diode should be rated to handle that. That's a BIG diode and may not be easy to find. You probably won't blow a circuit breaker since your RMS current is only about 12A (with the 1500W bulb).
And the 24V bulb should light-up with a 12V car battery (at 1/4 of the power = 62.5W).
Personally... I wouldn't play around with these ... I'd either get rid of them or use them as "decorative items".
P.S.
Have you checked the bulbs with an ohmmeter to make sure they are not burned-out?
I'm not an electrician but I worked for a company
that makes equipment for power grid control for utility companies so I know line voltage is never exact. It fluctuates slightly but usually it SAGS and rarely SURGES so if I had to guess I would say that
since (120+5) is approximately 120+5% I would guess they made it for a 5% tolerance in the line voltage. As already mentioned, 125 is not a standard line voltage.
EPILOG:
Some months after I left the Heathkit store I was in an electronics store with an older much more experienced tech with Ham radio background and guess who I saw ? The guy whose rig I blew up (and fixed). I turned to the tech I was with and pointed out the customer from the Heathkit
store and told him the story. He smiled and said "Let's have some fun with him. I'm going to go over and walk past him and stop and do a double
take and say "Hey, aren't you the guy whose rig they blew up at the Heathkit store ?" I laughed and "Ok but I'm going to hide over here and
watch from a distance because he would recognize me." So he went over talked to the guy and later told me he said "No way ! I have the best HW-101 in the whole valley !", to which my friend replied " No, I'm pretty sure it was yours." The guy was dumbfounded and speechless.
banahlih:
I have two incandescent bulbs, respectively 1000w/1500w and one 24v 250w halogen lamp.
I am wondering what operating voltage works with incandescent bulbs. It says only 125v/1000W on its body, 125v/1500W. The socket size seems E39 or E40 which is bigger than usual one.
The bulb showing two power settings is called a 3-way bulb. It uses a special socket and switch. The first setting is only the 1000 watt filament. The second setting is only the 1500 watt setting. The third setting is BOTH filaments powered so you get 2500 watts. Very commonly used in floor and table lamps in the US.
24 volts is an industrial equipment standard world-wide. Until the advent of LEDs, all industrial equipment used 24 volt bulbs.
My first experience was when I was 18 months old. We had a bar radiator way back in about 62. It was turned off unfortunately because if it was on I wouldn't have gone near it. Any this little industrious toddler found a screw driver and decided to undo the only screw to be seen.....you guessed it, the screw holding the bakerlite cover on the back where the power cord goes in. Once off I grabbed the wires and BANG.....thrown clear across the room.
How did this happen?? Well my all knowing grandfather had wired the power point wrong. Although it was off it still had power. Active and earth still at the radiator. He was switching neutral. I still have the scars at 60.
Also you reminded me of a trip I once had on Trans World Airways. Once seated and in the air this beautiful hostie came up to me and asked, "Would you like to try some of our world famous TWA Coffee?"
"No" I said, "but I wouldn't mind some of your TWAT"
Of course, a 1000W European bulb uses half as much current.