Ebay: Dim Bulb Tester

[anewmanx]

Looks decent if you don’t want to make one yourself.

https://ebay.us/dvhHmw

[bdunham7]

 

Ask to see a copy of his product liability insurance... 

[Whales]

Two sockets in series + a bulb adaptor?   I suspect the latter is the only dangerous bit (you can put your fingers into it), I can't see how the former could be unsafe (barring specific appliances misbehaving at lower or variable voltages).

EDIT: actually I think some country (?) wiring/appliance standards allow you to use the neutral as an earth (eg tie to chassis)?   A bad idea in general anyway, but it would also make this technically unsafe.

Nonetheless, if you are paying someone else to make one of these for you then you probably shouldn't be using one.

[anewmanx]

Nonetheless, if you are paying someone else to make one of these for you then you probably shouldn't be using one.

That point ^^^ was amusing.

I find having one around pretty handy for working on tube amplifiers, power supplies, etc. nice way to find a dead short without parts blowing up in your face.

[Shock]

Warning on underside:
May contain excessive use of twist on wire nuts.

[greenpossum]

So this is used to test bulbs that are not smart? 

[CatalinaWOW]

As incandescent bulbs disappear from the shelves one of these including the bulb might eventually justify the price.   

[james_s]

I see nothing wrong with it, looks nicely made. The price doesn't seem bad either honestly, I mean it wouldn't be worth my time to build those if I could only get 40 bucks for them, that's probably 30 minutes of labor and at least $15 in materials plus packing, shipping and ebay fees.

Wouldn't buy one myself, I'd just rig something up on the bench, but my test rig is not nearly as tidy looking.

[Shock]

This is what I call nicely made.

[james_s]

It certainly took more effort to build, however it takes up a lot more space and a wood housing is arguably less safe than a grounded metal box. Not that I'd be particularly worried about that.

[Gyro]

As incandescent bulbs disappear from the shelves one of these including the bulb might eventually justify the price.

Err..

Light bulb not included.

   

[syau]

DIY UK version 

[Seekonk]

I have one made from a six outlet power strip.  First four outlets are for the series lamps, last two supply device. Using plug in lamps makes it easy and versatile.  I learned this trick in the early 60' from an EICO amplifier kit ad.  It said the only piece of test equipment to build the kit was a lamp. Yea, so what do you do when the lamp glows?

[duckduck]

As incandescent bulbs disappear from the shelves one of these including the bulb might eventually justify the price.

You beat me to it, CatalinaWOW. I'm building one for myself and the biggest trouble is finding a dang high-wattage (say 200 W) incandescent bulb without paying highway-robbery prices on Amazon. I should have stocked up on these things...

[WattsThat]

200 and 300 watt incandescent bulbs can still be found in Ace hardware stores. At least in the northeast USA.

[edpalmer42]

200 and 300 watt incandescent bulbs can still be found in Ace hardware stores. At least in the northeast USA.

... and at Home Depot.  They even allow to search for incandescent bulbs.

[bdunham7]

You beat me to it, CatalinaWOW. I'm building one for myself and the biggest trouble is finding a dang high-wattage (say 200 W) incandescent bulb without paying highway-robbery prices on Amazon. I should have stocked up on these things...

4 sockets, maybe 4 switches and a 4-pack of 100W bulbs. 

[james_s]

... and at Home Depot.  They even allow to search for incandescent bulbs.

The Home Depot near me has zero conventional incandescent bulbs on the shelves, a few halogen capsule and linear lamps but none of the screw in type. I was just there the other day and looked since we still use incandescent at our cabin to keep everything retro 1970s, and the heating there is electric resistance anyway. Other than there I haven't used an incandescent bulb for general illumination in almost 20 years.

[anewmanx]

https://www.1000bulbs.com/

[edpalmer42]

... and at Home Depot.  They even allow to search for incandescent bulbs.

The Home Depot near me has zero conventional incandescent bulbs on the shelves, a few halogen capsule and linear lamps but none of the screw in type. I was just there the other day and looked since we still use incandescent at our cabin to keep everything retro 1970s, and the heating there is electric resistance anyway. Other than there I haven't used an incandescent bulb for general illumination in almost 20 years.

I have two local Home Depot stores.  Most of the 'in stock' incandescents are decorative or trilights.  But they do have 2 x 100W rough service or 1 x 300W clear bulbs for ~ US$5.  Now I'm curious.  I've seen regular bulbs at various Dollar stores.  I'll have to remember to look next time I'm near one to see if they're still there.

I still use a few incandescent bulbs.  They're typically low wattage, infrequently used bulbs.  They never seem to burn out.  I know that CFL hates to be turned on and off - it just kills the bulb's lifetime.  I don't know if LED cares about that. 

[james_s]

I still use a few incandescent bulbs.  They're typically low wattage, infrequently used bulbs.  They never seem to burn out.  I know that CFL hates to be turned on and off - it just kills the bulb's lifetime.  I don't know if LED cares about that.

LED doesn't care at all, and they reach full brightness instantly, those two aspects were the reason I upgraded from CFL to LED back in 2011-2013. Initially I was replacing my CFLs as they burned out with Philips LED bulbs that cost me 40 bucks a pop at the time. After a couple years the LEDs were less than half that price so I started swapping out CFLs until the only incandescent bulbs I had left are in the oven and a couple of lava lamps.

Starting a fluorescent lamp is hard on it, this is especially true of the instant start kind that strike without preheating the cathodes. Each time you strike the arc with cold cathodes it blows off a bit of the oxide coating equivalent to quite a few hours of operation. CFLs worked well in my outside lights that run dusk till dawn and almost always gave me at least the full rated life. In applications like bathrooms where they got a lot of cycles they would often crap out after a few hundred hours. The LEDs have been great though, I've had 4 or 5 fail total in the ~9 years I've been using them and all but one of those were used in fully enclosed fixtures despite warnings on the package to not do that. The other was in one of my porch lights and had been running an average of 12 hours a night for 8 years, it was still visually as bright as new but it had started to cycle off and on with about a 2 minute period. Fault in the driver which was potted.

[duckduck]

https://www.1000bulbs.com/

They've got a great selection for cheap, but US$17 for shipping 2 bulbs within the US? Ouch.

[_Wim_]

I made one using 10 G9 25Watt oven light bulbs in parallel a long time ago. I bought something similar to these:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32830020002.html?spm=2114.12010615.8148356.2.300e480fovQSMp

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32845148544.html?spm=2114.12010615.8148356.4.7b972feej0uIOm

Each lamp start of limit power at almost perfectly 10 Watt. With the switches I can dial in what the max power consumption of the DUT is (up until 100Watt, sufficient for most items I test). You can also fit 60 Watt bulbs if more power is needed (for example if into repairing tube gear).