[dissolute]

So this morning I woke up to fire alarms...

I really loved that 4x4 parabolic reflector, covered my 5x5 mother area perfectly, vertical bare bulb, tapped it with my skull a couple times, but never had a problem, until this morning.

Well today the ~3 year old hortilux HPS just kind of melted/burned itself right off of it's mogul base. Now I know, I guess I should have replaced it earlier but I honestly only thought I was losing a few lumens. Luckily I had 2 1020 trays of clones under it to catch it! they burned for a while I guess because there isn't much left of one of them, or the plastic containers that were in it, and those poor baby girls. Had an extinguisher mounted 0 steps behind me on the wall when I open the door to the veg room! Best money I ever spent, out in 2 seconds, but, if I hadn't been home? Doubt I'll ever run an open mogul socket again. Really loved that setup over the mothers too, but I'm going to throw up an old horizontal cool tube/reflector for now.

Worth it to cover the area in LED bars now or stick with HID?

[who dat is]

Holy shit I'm glad nothing worse happened to you! That is a very real fear of mine as well with my setup. You have any pictures? Glad you were able to handle it in no time.

[_tessarecting]

I replace mine after 6 months.

If you can see dark smoky discolorations on the ends they absolutely should not be used.

[Vanilla Phoenix]

Damn dude! Glad you were home.

[troutman]

I won't use a bulb longer than 2 crops.

[starke]

Glad you're OK. Scary stuff.

[MicroRoy]

Glad your damage was minimal.

[dissolute]

Thanks guys, until today I'd only ever though about MH failures as being a safety issue. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures. The bulb separated from the mogul base without breaking, even after landing, but left hanging was a 6" long black glass teardrop, no signs of fire on the hood, the bulb apparently just melted out of place! It was definitely several years old but always vegged more than I needed so I never replaced it, lesson learned!

[EastCoast710]

Originally Posted by dissolute

So this morning I woke up to fire alarms...

I really loved that 4x4 parabolic reflector, covered my 5x5 mother area perfectly, vertical bare bulb, tapped it with my skull a couple times, but never had a problem, until this morning.

Well today the ~3 year old hortilux HPS just kind of melted/burned itself right off of it's mogul base. Now I know, I guess I should have replaced it earlier but I honestly only thought I was losing a few lumens. Luckily I had 2 1020 trays of clones under it to catch it! they burned for a while I guess because there isn't much left of one of them, or the plastic containers that were in it, and those poor baby girls. Had an extinguisher mounted 0 steps behind me on the wall when I open the door to the veg room! Best money I ever spent, out in 2 seconds, but, if I hadn't been home? Doubt I'll ever run an open mogul socket again. Really loved that setup over the mothers too, but I'm going to throw up an old horizontal cool tube/reflector for now.

Worth it to cover the area in LED bars now or stick with HID?

stick with HID.. just use a surge protector for it if its something with your power.. wouldn't of been any safer with an aircooled hood it would of had hot glass hit glass and shattered a bunch of glass all over your room more than likely.

[URSA LED]