Do's and Don'ts

1. Lamp Handling
   

   Never handle halogen lamps with bare fingers as Sodium salts present on a skin will leave residue on the quartz body. During the lamp operation the sodium salt will dissolve in quartz glass causing devitrification (seen as white finger prints) leading to cracking of quartz glass and to the lamp failure. If accidentally a lamp gets handled by bare hands, it should be wiped clean with alcohol.

2. Burning Position

   Some lamps have restriction on burning position, say ± 15° or ± 45° to horizontal. If such restriction is not observed, it could lead to blackening of lamp.

3. Seal Temperature

   Seal temperature is critical to the lamp life. Higher seal temperature, say > 350°C, could lead to early lamp failure (less than 2000 hr) due to seal oxidation. Lamps are so designed that under normal operating condition, the seal temperature would be low enough to prevent any premature lamp failure. Therefore, while designing a luminaire or a system using halogen or halogen IR lamp, care should be taken to provide for sufficient heat dissipation at the pinch seal to ensure seal temperature below 350°C.