Re:The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy
by russdill on Monday March 05, 2018 @08:03PM
(#16526065)
There's a tradeoff between efficiency and life. My electric oven makes a decent light when turned on high. I bet it'd burn for a lot longer than 100 years.
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Fun story, I've seen an oven element burn out. It arced through the floor of the oven, leaving a hole I could stick my finger through and almost started a house fire.
Re:The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy
by IntronExon on Monday March 05, 2018 @08:38PM
(#16526222)
That’s absolutely terrifying! Was it a very old or poorly maintained oven? Please say yes...
Both. It was in a rented apartment. My best guess is that decades of heat cycling had caused the filament to sag.
It probably wasn't sagging that killed it. Over time those elements will develop hot spots and eventually the hot spot fails spectacularly spewing sparks and plasma from the failure. It's kind of similar to a plasma cutter for a second as there's the small arc in the element which ionizes the gas and it blows it out from the element and if it hits something grounded I can totally see it punching a hole through sheet metal.