Light bulbs typically operate at over 3000K.
The oven might reac 500K.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the specialness of an oven light bulb has
more to do with a heat-tolerant housing than the filament?

"Dubious Dude" > wrote in message
...
> Light bulbs typically operate at over 3000K.
> The oven might reac 500K.
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but the specialness of an oven light bulb has
> more to do with a heat-tolerant housing than the filament?

My oven uses an "appliance" bulb. I believe that these bulbs hold up to
vibration better than normal bulbs. I don't think it has anything to do
with the ambient temperature. I use the same bulbs in the refrigerator.

"Vox Humana" > wrote in message
>> Correct me if I'm wrong, but the specialness of an oven light bulb has
>> more to do with a heat-tolerant housing than the filament?
>
> My oven uses an "appliance" bulb. I believe that these bulbs hold up to
> vibration better than normal bulbs. I don't think it has anything to do
> with the ambient temperature. I use the same bulbs in the refrigerator.

According to the package on the bulb I bough yesterday, it does both,
temperature extremes as well as vibration. It is also a smaller globe than a
typical 40 watt lamp bulb.

Oven light went out about a year ago and I finally replaced it yesterday.

"Edwin Pawlowski" > wrote in message
news
> "Vox Humana" > wrote in message
> >> Correct me if I'm wrong, but the specialness of an oven light bulb has
> >> more to do with a heat-tolerant housing than the filament?
> >
> > My oven uses an "appliance" bulb. I believe that these bulbs hold up to
> > vibration better than normal bulbs. I don't think it has anything to do
> > with the ambient temperature. I use the same bulbs in the refrigerator.
>
> According to the package on the bulb I bough yesterday, it does both,
> temperature extremes as well as vibration. It is also a smaller globe than
a
> typical 40 watt lamp bulb.
>
> Oven light went out about a year ago and I finally replaced it yesterday.

The light in my oven is a piece of shit. The bulb literally fused to the
socket, which I discovered when the first one burnt out. It took forever to
remove the bulb and I'm sure I damaged the fixture. I need to pull the
stove and replace bake element and I may replace the light fixture at the
same time. Moving a dual fuel, downdraft range isn't much fun, especially
since it is a slide-in that is caulked to seal it around the counter top.

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 20:17:32 -0500, Dubious Dude > wrote:

>Light bulbs typically operate at over 3000K.

That (~3400 deg K) is the *color temperature* of an incandescent bulb, not the
ambient operating temperature of the glass bulb. Fluorescent bulbs, for example,
generate light at 5200-5600 deg K, yet they run much cooler than incandescent
bulbs.

>The oven might reac 500K.

That is an actual heat temperature within the oven. It has no more to do with
the color temperature of the buld than does normal room temperature for any
normal bulb.

-- Larry

Well, yes, the color temp of the bulb is actually pretty close to the
temperature of *the filament* in the bulb. Not the globe around it. And
the issue is the survival of the globe, not the filament. The whole
world in the oven looks frigid to the filament. But as others have
said, plain old bulbs work fine. Applicance bulbs are just smaller.

"Dougl" > wrote:
> But as others have
> said, plain old bulbs work fine. Applicance bulbs are just smaller.

I really don't have any experience one way or another on whether regular
bulbs would work, as I haven't tried one. But sometimes there are
differences in light bulbs beyond a thicker filament or a smaller size. I
found out the hard way that "burn base down" is an important warning. I had
a "burn base down" bulb "explode" on me by having it base up. Not a real
explosion, but the seal inside the bulb base broke and the light fixture
filled up with a cloud that fogged the interior of it pretty badly. The
fixture was one of those "Moravian Star" lights and was an incredible pain
to clean, having like 64 panes of glass.

I learned my lesson on the burn base down warning, but you have to watch out
as some of these warnings are just graphic symbols that you'd never figure
out without some text.

Another not so obvious thing about light bulbs is some really "buzz" when
controlled by a dimmer, while others are silent. It depends on the filament
design. I've found the decorative bulbs (like flame shaped) tend not to buzz
with dimmers, but then a lot of them are burn base down.

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That is very interesting. I had never heard of "burn base down", but
you can google it, and find a lot of examples. I would like to believe
that general purpose hardware store bulbs are never that way, since we
all put them in ceiling fixtures in which they are almost never base
down. Decorative bulbs may be a different matter.

Now I do know that regular bulbs seem to work in 450F ovens, as being
too lazy to go out and get real appliance bulbs (which don't fit very
well in anything else!), my well-used oven has gone through just a
couple of conventional bulbs in the last decade or two. But now that I
poke around, I see sites that recommend that only true
appliance-designated bulbs be used. Yes, they seem to be sites selling
those bulbs, but ...

"Dougl" > wrote:
> That is very interesting. I had never heard of "burn base down", but
> you can google it, and find a lot of examples. I would like to believe
> that general purpose hardware store bulbs are never that way, since we
> all put them in ceiling fixtures in which they are almost never base
> down. Decorative bulbs may be a different matter.

I hadn't noticed either really until I had that bulb "explode". That's when
I noticed. I guess the bulb overheats in some way. One thing I saw mentioned
was the glue that holds the glass bulb into the socket can't take it. In my
case, I believe the place where they evacuate the bulb and seal it blew out.

My latest light bulb experience was yesterday putting Christmas lights up
outside. Why if you check all the bulbs just before boxing them up at the
end of the season, are there bad bulbs right out of the box when you take
them out next year? ;-)

I always check the seating of the bulbs in the sockets, and "flick" them to
see if I can get the filament to reattach if it is broken. Bad move these
days. The newer light strings have fuses in the plugs. The fuse blew and I
had no spares. I went to the neighborhood hardware store to get the odd
fuse, and it was a whopping $2.19. I thought, wow, I could buy the whole
light string for that when they go on sale after Christmas. In the past,
I've been tempted to buy these light strings then just for the bulbs, but
they were always slightly more than buying the bulbs on sale. I did find
fuses cheaper at Radio Shack, but they were still $2.49 for four.

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