"Silver Surfer" wrote in message
...
Oops. I should have revealed my ulterior motive. My daughter's
mother-in-law has an outside light fixture that eats incandescent bulbs
for some reason. I measured the voltage and found that it was 123 volts.
No other fixtures in the house eat bulbs like this one does. My wild
guess is that the house wiring (relatively new abode) may be miswired or
defective in some strange way. Would rather not spend a lot of time
tracing it out while possibly damaging the wallboard and such.

She uses a low wattage bulb in the fixture. My thinking was to use one of
the disc thingies in the fixture with a higher wattage bulb. Perhaps the
diode would save the bulb from a peculiar voltage surge if that indeed is
what is happening. Just trying to find an quick, easy, and lazy way out.

Thanks for your valuable comments.



Nothing in the house wiring could cause that issue, though 123V is a tad on
the high side. Thermal issues in the fixture, vibration, or usage patterns
affect lamp life. You can also get long life bulbs rated 130V which will
probably solve your problem. Why not use a compact fluorescent though? I use
them in all my exterior lights, most are on dusk till dawn and I get about 2
years out of the bulbs.