"The Revd" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 12 Jul 2011 08:58:04 -0700, mike wrote:

The Revd wrote:
I have a halogen lamp from IKEA with a 120V to 12V transformer.
The rectifier (presumably) has failed and the transformer is
outputting 12V AC instead of 12V DC.

Can I wire in a generic rectifier to the output side to solve the
problem?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Why do you think the rectifier EXISTS?
The lamp doesn't care whether it's ac or dc. At
least the first order effects don't care.
It should be a tiny bit happier with AC.

I assumed that a 12V halogen bulb would take DC voltage. Am I wrong?


If you run a lamp on DC the almost molten tungsten gradually migrates to one
end of the filament leaving weak spots at the other end where it becomes
thinner - this shortens lamp life compared to running on AC.