New board member

[Yoshi]

Hello fellow lightbulb collectors! I'm from Mexico, and I have been collecting lightbulbs since I was 12. I liked collecting them until I lost interest because of lack of support from people around me. I thought I was the only person in the world who had an interest for these things. But one day, many years later, now with my own computer and internet access, I decided to go search for a lightbulb collector's site. I wanted to see if there were other people that had developed a lightbulb collecting ambition just like me. I was very surprised to see so many bulb collector sites!! So a few months after that finding, I joined eBay in 2002 and started buying many awesome antique and vintage lightbulbs. I am almost 20 years old now, but am still 19! I feel I am the youngest bulb collector around here... am I?

Anyway, I'd like to meet you all. I already know a few of you. Hi Chris Millinship! Hello Dave! Hello Roy!

I am still a novice when it comes to lightbulbs... I don't know much about electricity, and I know almost nothing about lightbulb history. About electricity, I know about AC and DC and their differences; Also about voltage and wattage, but I don't know anything about "Amperes" or the exact difference between an electronic dimmer and a rheostat dimmer, among other things. About lightbulb history, I know many of the dates in the timeline reference from this site, and a few other little things such as a few names of people who pioneered in the making of the lightbulb, like Maxim, Swan, and of course, Edison. As you can see, it's nothing compared to what some of you know.

I have used electronic dimmers with my antique bulbs, and so far none has been damaged. However, after reading the post on this board titled "Using dimmers on old bulbs", I dare not use an electronic dimmer again. I would like to know where I can find a resistive dimmer and how much it will cost. I really don't understand how an electronic dimmer can damage a bulb... I have measured the output voltage of my electronic dimmer with my multimeter and it is indeed being lowered. Also, is it the same to simply screw in an old bulb on a 120v socket or using an electronic dimmer with it, or does the electronic dimmer help at least a bit in protecting the bulb? I hate electronic dimmers anyway because they burn out very easily. I have had two already and they are both dead.

I think I have a small rheostat device, only that it is limited to 18v. It was for use with a toy locomotive, but I have used it for electricity experiments too. I also used it to test bulbs for continuity before I got my multimeter (by looking for a glowing filament, or for sparks on contact!).

I would like to suggest a date for the timeline page of this site. I have many 1927 ads in which Mazda bulbs are shown to have taken their actual shape, leaving the flat-sided, cage filament design behind. They are advertised as the "New" National Mazda lamps that "now cost 25 cents". Perhaps cage filaments were last used on 1926? (of course, not including modern versions such as FerroWatt bulbs).

I do feel a few of the collectors on this board are much more passionate in bulb collecting than I am; For example, they pay a lot more for a single bulb. The most I have paid for a single bulb so far is $35. I really like lightbulbs a lot, but I guess there are others who like them even more. I'm not saying that's bad! Actually It's great to have a passion for something. I guess I'm just a low-budget collector.

I live in Mexico but I am very close to the U.S.; I even have my own mailbox there! So I have the tremendous benefit of being able to bid on auctions from sellers that only ship to U.S. addresses.

I also have a huge database (90+ MB) of interesting lightbulb pictures that have been sold on eBay since november 2002. If you ever would like to query it, contact me. I have lots of info of each pic on the filename: name, final bid price, seller, high bidder, date, and item number.

How do you guys see the filament of a frosted bulb? I used to apply water on them, it makes the frosting more transparent. Now I use laser light. Laser light is powerful enough to cast a shadow of the inner workings of frosted bulbs, and works great! Lasers have become very inexpensive, you can get one for $5-$10. I remember that they costed like $80, about 7 years ago.

I had not posted on this board before because I didn't want to meet too many collectors at once, because then I would have to avoid outbidding them on eBay (at the time, I was bidding on a lot of stuff). Now, I have bought most of the things I initially wanted, so I can now talk to other collectors without worrying about bids. I have a few friends with which I have agreed to not to outbid each other, but with the rest of you guys, I think it will be better if we simply keep bidding "as we always have". This will benefit us both... Thank you for understanding!

Here is the complete story about how I became interested in bulbs:



It all started when I was 12. I had a BB rifle, so I wanted to collect a lot of non-working light bulbs to use as targets. I collected like, 50 of them, many of which I got from my grandparent's house. So I kept them for a while; I didn't want to shoot them immediately; I really wanted to have a good time, so I kept on the lookout for more. Over time, I started looking more and more at the light bulbs I had collected - I looked at how perfect creations they were - Transparent, glass made, all with the same sparkling glass and the exact same shape. I thought of them as little jewels, which to everyone else's eyes were just a bunch of trash... So, I decided to start a lightbulb collection. My parents thought I was crazy (and still do, but they don't mention it anymore) They weren't upset, but they simply thought it was strange.

I initially collected only non-working bulbs, but that changed. I remember that I wanted to buy too many bulbs... I also remember I bought a full street light! It was a mercury vapor lamp. My first streetlighting bulb was a white-coated mercury vapor bulb. I took it from a street lamp in a small junkyard. I had never seen that kind of lightbulb so close, and I loved it!

I went to stores and bought lightbulbs that I liked in some way or other: The filament, the shape, the style, the application, the features, etc... I also asked people to collect old, non-working lightbulbs for me. My father helped me get a lot of streetlighting bulbs, which were very impressive for the little kid I was.

Then, over time I lost all interest in bulb collecting, mainly because of lack of support from those that surrounded me, and because I was sure I was the only "crazy" guy that collected bulbs in the whole world, that I was all alone on this. So I gave up on it; I destroyed almost all of the non-working bulbs I had (finally used them for targets); Those that I had many of, I used them. They were all modern bulbs though (so don't worry!).

I didn't have a heart to destroy/sell/use the remaining bulbs; Deep in my mind I still liked them. So I "buried" them in my closet, and they remained there for many years, until I saw Chris Millinship's website. Then I got them out of the closet and looked at them, made my site with them, and organized them better. I had returned to bulb collecting.

[Chris W. Millinship]

Welcome to our sleepy little community! Good to see you here.

Regarding the "resistive dimmer" - these are often called Variacs and you might find one on Ebay some time. They come in a huge variety of sizes from little 100 watt sorts (or even less) right up to ones rated at many kilowatts. You`d probably want the little one though - they do get rather heavy.

Electronic dimmers are bad for early bulbs as far as I`m aware, simply from their primary failure mode. When the output triac in an electronic dimmer fails, it goes short-circuit pushing the full mains voltage accross the output. You don`t want that happening when you try to power up a 50 volt lamp  

-

Glad my little "bulb museum" site helped inspire a fellow lamp enthusiast to start collecting again!





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Visit the Bulb Museum!
e-mail: curator(at)bulbmuseum(dot)net.

[Mónico González]

Hi Yoshi!
Welcome to the Forums, you can see that you are not the only one that loves all kind of Electric Lamps, Hi!.
I guess you can speak Spanish, but for a wider understanding by another members, I will reply you in English.
I agree with Chris (Hi Chris!, how are you?)about electronic dimmers. Of course, these devices has the unpleasant "habit" of become suddenly short-circuited in the more inopportune time, just when you are testing a low voltage lamp from 120-125 volt mains, resulting in a wonderful and valuable bulb "gone with the wind" .
Here in Europe, things are worse, due to our 220-230 volt AC standards. A 125-130v bulb from forty or fifty or sixty years ago, could, literally, fly in many bits in your hands at full 220v. A thing that none of ours would like to experience on any of ours collection pieces.
When a triac fails due to voltage surges or RF spikes, only two things can ocur:
1- The Triac junction becomes open, giving as a result that the device breakes the circuit and bulb lits off (better).
2- The Triac junction becomes short circuited, giving as a result a direct path to current flow, and bulb are directly connected to mains (catastophic).

Furthermore, regulation basis of triacs are based on triggering by phase shifting, so the output waveform are not a 60Hz (here 50Hz) perfect sinusoidal AC wave.
The resultant output waveform are a complicated 50 or 60Hz pulse-train with a very abrupt rise-up flank, that are not the best for old and delicate filaments powering.
A variac are a better, logical (and expensive too) solution for old and/or low voltage lamps testing, due that these devices really gives out a reduced (or elevated) voltage, especially safe if that variac are a true secondary-isolated transformer instead a self or auto-transformer. In addition, the output waveform of any xformer are always very near to a perfect sinusoid.
Variable resistors, also called Rheostats, are a second choice, due to its intrinsical characteristics, but these are delicate to operate and also dissipates a fair amount of energy (depending upon the load) in the way of radiated, convected and conduced heat.
Furthermore, rheostatic devices are quite unsafe to operate, because these aparattuses often are made in open way to disipate the large amount of heat that does generate, and it's easy to be shocked by any undesired contact with it.

I hope to see you here very soon.
Best regards,

Espero verte pronto por aqu?, Yoshi.
Un saludo muy cordial para M?xico desde Ciudad Real, Espa?a.

M?nico Gonz?lez.
 http://mis-bombillas.webcindario.com

[This message has been edited by M?nico Gonz?lez (edited June 07, 2003).]

[Yoshi]

Hello Chris!   Thanks for your advice! Do you have your own Variac? I will try to look for one in a hardware store. Are they still being manufactured, or have they been replaced by the electronic type?

You are exactly right, my failed electronic dimmers do pass along full voltage. They simply became an extension for the socket! One of my dimmers died when I screwed a 24v bulb into it (I didn't know it was a 24v because it was unmarked), and of course the filament blew, in a very unusual way. Again, it wasn't a very valuable bulb, it is still being produced, so there was no real historical loss here... (Besides I have a nearly identical bulb). I get really upset when I hear that a very old, rare, valuable bulb is broken or damaged because of lack of care, and I'm sure you guys do too... Do you? Like for example, some ignorant person finds a Westinghouse-based bulb and then blows its filament... it can be really frustrating sometimes... (btw I have never heard such a story before, it's just an example).

Hello M?nico!! Thank you! Yes, I can speak Spanish! If you ever want to email me, you can do so in Spanish.   I was thinking about adding a fuse to my next electronic dimmer switch so that no short circuit could ever exist, but of course now I will buy no electronic dimmer.

I wonder, have any of you guys been electrocuted before? (at low voltage of course! But still it can be an electrifying experience!) I hope not!

About trading: I have several bulbs here for trade. I have: Westinghouse Mazda cobalt blue & ruby red tipless cage fil. bulbs (60w 120v), Champ insect bulbs with mint boxes & instructions & pellets, and a few other things. All work! I can also go buy Mexican bulbs and use them for trading. I can get you many kinds of Mexican bulbs!

These are the bulbs that I am most interested in, and if you have one of these I'd like to buy/trade it!:

-Blue Wabash Blackout Bulb
-Shelby squashed mushroom shape bulb, with edison base (like the one on Livermore)
-Sterling Spiral bulb
-Westinghouse-Edison combo base bulb

By the way, my real name is not Yoshi, but I like to be called that.  

My site is: http://www.2yr.net/bulbs/

Gracias M?nico, eres muy amable!! Es un placer conocerte. Un gran saludo desde M?xico a Espa?a!

Por cierto, aqu? en M?xico a las bombillas usualmente les decimos "focos", sabias?
(Here in M?xico we call lightbulbs "focos").

Thanks guys!


-Yoshi

[Chris W. Millinship]

Do you have your own Variac?

Not yet. I do have a few DC variable lab power supplies which I use to power early lamps. Two of them will give me up to 5 amps at up to 30v and one will do an amp at up to 60v - I use this one for photographing many bulbs lit up since I can adjust them to glow nicely and not flare up overloading the camera. It`ll run up a 110 volt carbon lamp quite nicely. 200/240v ones don`t do so well but the tungsten ones do usually glow quite well. Unfortunately these sort of power supplies are extremely expensive - I got lucky and scavenged these out of the trash at work, then spent ages getting them to work again!

Variacs are still made today but are quite expensive bought new since they`re not made in large quantities any more. You might get lucky if you check at a nearby college or university - sometimes these places have old power supplies, variacs, etc, just sitting around (perhaps in need of some attention to get them going again) which they may let you have. No guarantees there though but it can`t hurt to try. And then there`s always Ebay. You should be able pick up a used Variac for not much $$$ eventually.

-

I wonder, have any of you guys been electrocuted before?

Oh yes, many a time. And not low voltage either. I`ve been bitten by 240 volts at 50Hz more times than I can remember. Most often it`s brushing against an exposed live (hot) conductor while also in contact with earthed (grounded) metalwork. It hurts   Careful with those low voltage flourescent lamp ballasts, like you find in light fixtures in trailers/RVs, etc. They can burn you as the few thousand volts arcs to your finger! It isn`t dreadful sonce the current is very low, but it does sting!


   

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Visit the Bulb Museum!
e-mail: curator(at)bulbmuseum(dot)net.

[This message has been edited by Chris Millinship (edited June 07, 2003).]

[Yoshi]

240 volts, wow! And I thought 120v was bad enough... Does anyone know what is the range of non-fatal voltages? Meaning, how high does a voltage need to be to be fatal? I have been shocked by camera flash capacitors before, and it hurt too!

[Chris W. Millinship]

It`s all about current. 1-5mA will sting. Up to 10 could knock you over. 15-20 will cause burns and render you uncontious. 25 and over are potentially fatal. If I remember it all correctly (and probably havn`t).

As you can see, the currents involved are very low. Of course, due to ohm`s law, the higher the voltage the higher the current given a fixed resistance (internal body`s resistance) but every person has a different resistance depending on all sorts of things.


Bottom line is - take care! If in doubt, turn the power off first.




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Visit the Bulb Museum!
e-mail: curator(at)bulbmuseum(dot)net.

[Tim]

Welcome to the bulb forum "Yoshi"!  I think many of us thought we were the only bulb collectors in the world.  Then came the Internet and that changed in a hurry.  I remember logging on back in 1994 and immediately searched for other collectors online.  It took a good year before I met up with any other bulb collectors and they were still few and far between but I knew I wasn?t the only nut interested in this stuff!  After putting this site online in 1997 and with the advent of eBay, I?ve met hundreds of other collectors around the globe.

Regarding the history of early lamp pioneers and such, I would suggest reading up on history as much as possible if this interests you.  I find researching the history of bulbs as interesting as collecting them and I believe they should go hand-in-hand but maybe that?s just my inquisitive nature.  I have a lot of reference material on this site under the Paper Archives and Ed Covington has a nice site full of interesting history and information ? see the links page.


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Tim
Kilokat's Antique Light Bulb Site
Mountain Dew Collectibles, Volume I

[This message has been edited by tim (edited June 08, 2003).]

[Yoshi]

Hmm, that makes sense! (that everybody has a different resistance). also, buildings have different charges. I learned what I know about electricity from Computer Networking courses. I learned about pretty basic stuff such as AC, DC, insulators & conductors, resistance, basics of electricity, static electricity, etc. etc... Still, I don't know anything about Amperes or "mA"s. I only learned about stuff related to internetworking, and the (DC) voltages used in networks are very low, so it was a quite "superficial" course concerning electricity.

Hello Tim! Nice to finally meet you!   It took me a few years after having internet access to think about bulbs again, so I did not immediately search for other bulb collectors after getting internet access for the first time. Why? I don't know, maybe because a very long time had passed (about 5-6 years). I find your figure very impressive... hundreds of collectors! wow!

A few days ago I was bidding on an awesome lighting history book, but I was outbid. It was titled "The history of the incandescent lamp", written by John Howell and Henry Schroeder, published by The Maqua Company, with 208 pages and illustrations. Printed in 1927. I didn't have high hopes of winning that book because I have seen that same book sell in the past for a lot more (item #3216681051 in april = $87, and another one in December 2002 for $85). I asked the seller if he/she could make a copy of the book and auction it later, but he/she never responded. Do any of you guys have this same book? If you do, why don't you make full photocopies of it and auction them on eBay? Those books are really old so I doubt you could be busted by eBay for copyright infringement etc. etc... I would love to read that book but as you can see, they are not affordable and are extremely scarce. I hope someone decides to share their book with the rest of the world someday. I would pay a good amount for a well made, complete photocopy of this book. I care more about its content than the book itself. I may even be willing to adapt this book so that it can be viewed easily through the web, complete with images. I have browsed a few bulb history sites a bit but I haven't found one who has general info about the history of electric lighting. It seems to me that the existing bulb history sites are too advanced for beginners like me, or that they talk about much more specific things. I need something that will introduce me first to the general history of lighting, so that then I can move on to more advanced topics. For example let's say I stumble upon a bulb history page that talks about Sawyer-Man filaments and other Sawyer-Man designs. I think I'd rather first read about what is "Sawyer-Man", who were its founders, when was the company created, why was it important, etc. etc...

Thank you all for your kind posts!  


-Yoshi