Posted by:
mrslate
at Tue May 20 13:34:53 2008 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by mrslate ]
It has always been my understanding not to let the bulb touch the screen, and I know this to cause Powersuns and similarly constructed bulbs to blow out. The screen gets hot and is in contact with the bulb so the bulb is hotter than it would be normally.Megaray has much better construction and thicker glass but it is likely to cause a similar situation, although I am sure the megarays and T-rex handle it better. But I really do notice that the more heat the bulb produces the faster it decays, in general. I also have bulbs that are still going strong visibly and heatwise but are producing very low amounts of uvb.(I keep them in case one blows out to use while I wait for a replacement) They decay long before they blow out for the most part. I only had one megaray fail before it really decayed and that was an EB that I used for about 18 months, in the last month it started to decay a little but was still very strong, then started blinking and flickering. I don't have screen tops so I can't tell you for sure but as a general rule bulbs should not touch the screen. AS for replacing every 18 months, your bulbs probably still produce uvb but not nearly as much as when new, but it is likely they produce more than a tube that is only a few months old. And some are probably doing better than others. If you don't get a meter, I would say to replace them in spring every year for 100 watt megarays, rather than 18 months.
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RE: Mercury vapor or Reptisun UVB 10.0? - mrslate, Tue May 20 13:34:53 2008