[Hallicrafters] 130 volt light bulbs

[Glen Zook]

When I was working for TXU (electric company for about half the State of Texas) and was on their "speakers' bureau" one question that came up at least once per presentation that I made was always "why do my light bulbs burn out so fast".  The reason was that TXU, as well as virtually all of the major electric companies in the United States, runs 125 VAC +/- 2 volts as the "standard" voltage nowadays and especially during the warmer months usually the voltage is on the "+" side at 127 volts.  At that voltage a 120 volt bulb generally lasts only about 10% of the life that it has at a maximum of 120 volts.  Therefore, my recommendation was to purchase 130 volt bulbs.

One of the primary reasons that 120 volt bulbs are the vast majority of bulbs that can be found at most retail outlets is that they do burn out so fast with the higher voltages now furnished by most electric companies and therefore the retail outlets sell a lot more bulbs.  When 130 volt bulbs are used they tend to last between 10 and 20 times as long as the 120 volt bulbs and therefore the sales of bulbs are severely curtailed when the customer "finds out" about 130 volt bulbs.

Glen, K9STH

Website:  http://k9sth.com


--- On Wed, 12/10/08, tuscola <tuscola at tds.net> wrote:

From: tuscola <tuscola at tds.net>

In the past 6 months I got rid of all of my CFL lights because of the RF noise and because of the two warning labels that are on each of these lamps packaging...."Contains Mercury and made in China".
 
I went back to standard light bulbs, but am now using 130v lights. I bought these at Lowes they run $9.98 for a box of 24, they carry no warning labels or cause RF problems. They are made by Sylvania in the USA. 100w use's 88w and has a life of 1875 hrs vs. 750. 60w use's 53w and has a life of 2500 hrs vs. 1000 hrs.