1. Home
  2. Electronics Repair
  3. Defective Bulb Tripping Ckt Breaker: How Possible ?
  4. Page 2

Defective Bulb Tripping Ckt Breaker: How Possible ?

How old is the electrical system in the house? In most places of the U.S. AFCIs have been the standard since 2002. They were available for several years before 2002 and may actually be what is installed in your house's breaker box.

AFCI arc fault circuit interupt type of circuit breaker. Detects the arc condition and trips.

As others have already stated, the arc in the bulb could draw enough current to trip most circuit breakers. Is fairly common in my experience as at least once every couple of years I have bulb "blow" and trip the breaker. Usually though it is one of the three way bulbs.

Reply to
dkuhajda
Loading thread data ...

"Robert11" wrote in news:AaadnUKll9619trYnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

How about if you break open the dead bulb, and tell us what what you see inside? A careful description will provide the clues to diagnose the problem.

Reply to
Jim Land

What's a '3-way bulb' ?

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

Multiple light wattage settings dependant on the switch setting of the lamp itself. IIRC contains 2 filaments as in 60W, 100W or 160W total combined with both switched on. YBMV (your bulb may vary)

Steve

Reply to
Stephen Tomchuk

Very common in North America but apparently not sold elsewhere. It's a single bulb with dual filaments, the most common being 50W and 100W, so the bulb is 50-100-150W. The base is a standard edison screw base with an extra contact ring and the socket has a rotary switch on it with 4 positions. Probably 90% of incandescent lamps come with these sockets, though very often they get standard bulbs inserted in them. The expensive 3 way bulbs are not very practical, the low wattage filament almost always fails long before the high wattage one does, and with triac dimmers as cheap as they are, I'm not sure why anyone even makes the sockets anymore.

A lot of old 1920s-30s floor lamps used a mogul base version which is commonly 100-200-300W, these bulbs are still available but I don't think anyone makes the sockets.

Reply to
James Sweet

In every hotel I have ever been in the 3 way lamps are always burnt out on one filament. Always.

--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Required crap appended to avoid restrictions imposed by brain   +
+ damaged idiots. 
+
+ Server Response: '441 Posting Failed (Rejected by POST filter)', +
+ Port: 119, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 441, 
+
+ Error Number: 0x800CCCA9 
+
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Reply to
Homer J Simpson

I see. I've never come across such a thing though.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.