Beer Bottle Light Bulb

I was installing some recessed lights the other day with the electrician and one of the bulbs we got from the supplier was broken in the box, but the inner halogen part still worked. I pinched the remaining glass off the brass base and got the idea of using a beer bottle to make the outer shell of a light bulb. I used JB Weld and electric tape to hold it on. The bulb was a 75w halogen BR30 made by Westinghouse.

So how does it look lit up?

The light comes out as an amber color similar to the color of urban streetlamps. It gets very hot around the neck of the bottle, 350-495 according to an ir thermometer, but it only gets to 100 or so at the base. It looked like a little bit of smoke/vapor appeared inside the bottle but it didn't get any worse. I had it on for 2 hours or so to make sure it's ok. It's hard to get a good picture of it in the light. Since beer bottle glass supposedly blocks 95% of the UV light, this should be a good way of lighting my fermentation area.

Who knew you could even do this??? This is an awesome DIY project. I'm heading to the kitchen to rob some can lights !

Be warned: this thing get's hot as %__@! As long as you keep it several inches away from anything it should be ok though. A porcelain base fixture on an unfinished ceiling is ideal.

Bright idea!.. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I dunno, as cool as this seems, that temperature seems awful high for a mere beer bottle to withstand. I think it would be prudent to enclose that thing with wire mesh just in case it decides to go to Heaven in a hurry one day...

Cheers

Wow, surprised it has lasted. I would think the filament would self destruct without a vacuumed enclosure. It quite possible you created one when you saw that smoke. When bulbs are manufactured they illuminate them at the factory to create the vacuum and they let out a puff of smoke. Really cool !!

I'm not sure if they have a vacuum, but they are filled with an inert gas to remove all oxygen. This helps keep the filaments from burning up and prolong life.

MaxOut said:

Wow, surprised it has lasted. I would think the filament would self destruct without a vacuumed enclosure. It quite possible you created one when you saw that smoke. When bulbs are manufactured they illuminate them at the factory to create the vacuum and they let out a puff of smoke. Really cool !!

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This bulb was a halogen, not incandescent, so the halogen bulb is a separately sealed unit inside of the overall light bulb. The halogen is another reason it gets so hot.

The glass should be fine as long as it has ample time to heat up/cool down. If I had this bulb in the garage in february, then it would probably want to fracture going from 20 to 400 degrees in a matter of minutes. Come to think of it, the glass that the bulb came from the factory with was paper thin, probably 1/5 that of beer bottle glass. That might help it change temperature very rapidly.

It's not unusual for those bulbs to get that hot either - exactly why you can't let insulation touch the cans or be closer than 3" away. They have IC rated cans that may be burried in insulation (ie attic), but that rating is dependent on the wattage of the bulb you use in them. If you ever see your recessed lights intermittently turning off then back on a few minutes later, it's the thermal protector switch indicating you have too bright of a bulb installed. Some of the older cans I've seen however don't have a thermal switch inside - I'd consider that a possible fire hazard if someone decides to put a 100W A19 bulb in it or worse.

it's a halogen bulb, the filament is incased in glass, look at the OP's first picture. the "bulb" part is the small glass bead at the end. the rest of the light was just a case so to speak.

Makes sense now that I see the bulb is encased in its own chamber.