Hi All

I bought 9 OSRAM Halogen 240v 40W G9 capsule bulbs and 6 of them have
blown in the space of 6 months and they have nowhere near reached 2000
hours which is what they have been certified for. Now, I'm not normally
really that concerned when it comes to lightbulbs blowing, but these
buggers are £4.83 a shot including VAT from a few websites I have
looked at.

Has anyone else used these bulbs and are OSRAM a particularly crap make
that I should avoid in future, any other manafacturers that are known
to be better and last longer?

Cheers

Richard

I bought 9 OSRAM Halogen 240v 40W G9 capsule bulbs and 6 of them have
blown in the space of 6 months and they have nowhere near reached 2000
hours which is what they have been certified for. Now, I'm not normally
really that concerned when it comes to lightbulbs blowing, but these
buggers are £4.83 a shot including VAT from a few websites I have
looked at.

Cheaper here £2 a go.
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind..._G9/index.html

I think the issue is these are 230V lamps running from 240V, yes I know it
should be 230V but a mate in the sticks had major issues with these bulbs
not lasting anytime at all due to mains not being 230V.

His first solution was to buy "soft starters" £30 from TLC (though can't see
them on sale now) does about 200W of lights per unit. This seriously
extended bulb life but no where near the "infinite" lifetime the previous
12V downlighters had.

Anyway bit the bullet replaced the lot with 12V equivelents in 2002 and not
a bulb blown since. Transformers were a mixture of individual 50W toroidal
jobbies + big jobby for light fixture with 4 bulbs. Main issue is can't get
big transformer out of ceiling as hole too small if ever there was an issue
(went in when bathroom floor above was up). Didn't use the modern dimmable
electronic transformers as these were very expensive in those days.

He has just replaced some of the lights with plain down lighters as SWMBO
chose lights with "dangly" bits, look nice and modern and were expensive,
but produce shadows and main issue collect dust and cobwebs and kitchen yuk
at an extraordinary rate, so after couple of years back to £2.99 TLC
downlighters.

On Wed, 17 May 2006 05:50:02 -0700, r.rain wrote:

I bought 9 OSRAM Halogen 240v 40W G9 capsule bulbs and 6 of them have
blown in the space of 6 months and they have nowhere near reached 2000
hours which is what they have been certified for. Now, I'm not normally
really that concerned when it comes to lightbulbs blowing, but these
buggers are £4.83 a shot including VAT from a few websites I have looked
at.

Has anyone else used these bulbs and are OSRAM a particularly crap make
that I should avoid in future, any other manafacturers that are known to
be better and last longer?

I got some no-name G9s off a bloke on eBay about 6 months ago and they've
been absolutely fine so far. Amazingly cheap - about 60p each in a deal
for 10 of them ISTR - so even if they do go pop it's no great loss.