busted pool light

[speedysteve]

Hi,

THe pool light in my inground pool stopped working so following U-tube instructions I pulled out the unit Fibrestars Luminaire V-432691 120 v 115 watt 1.29amp with a MR-16 12 volt 100watt bulb ( looks like a recessed ceiling light fitting with a large finned heat sink around the base ) ( unit has a rotating glass multi coloured disk for changing light color ) body of unit is 7.5" diameter and bezel is 10" diameter

removed the bulb and took it to my local pool store who after much digging through catalogs found the replacement part for $200 !! ouch !

A normal bulb ( also apparently a mr-16 12v 75watt ) is $14 but doesnt have the finned heat sink ( which is also how the bulb is held into the fixture )

The bulb looks foggy so im guessing its busted but am not keen on dropping 200 bucks for something that may not fix the problem

Ive managed to force / cut out the busted bulb from the heat sink and am concidering buying the normal bulb and epoxying it into the heatsink, will this work ?

open to suggestions as to what else I can do ? really hope it is just the bulb and it looks like a new light fitting is around $500 - $600 and thats just out of the question right now..

Any suggestions as to where I could either get the correct bulb cheaper or perhaps a lower cost complete unit if my "improvised" bulb doesnt work ?

What else could be wrong with the unit if the bulb doesnt fix the problem ?

Thanks for any help or giudance you can provide,

SS

 

[danpik]

Before you removed the old bulb like you did you could have tested it with a volt/OHM meter set on ohms to see if it was bad or not. Using the same weter, you can now at least test the socket to see if there is power there. If there is then, I would be 99.999% sure it is/was the bulb. As far as using the replacement like you want to...Can't hurt to try.

 

[speedysteve]

hi & thanks for the responce,

I tested the bulb for continuity across the terminals and the reading was unstable, then put 12v across it and it light for a second then died so I suspect the bulb was dead

I should have tested the unit while it was open for the 12v as you stated but when I had the unit appart it started raining so I quickly put it back together to keep it dry.

I'll wait for my next opportunity to pull the unit out of the pool and test it as you suggest

SS

 

[speedysteve]

drilled the old bulb out of the heat sink and used a conventional mr16 from Lowes ( pack of 3 for $10 ) epoxyed it into the heat sink and all appears to work fine, ( there was a relay in the control panel that had burnt out too, fixed that with a generic from radio shack for $7 )

So total cost to repair $17 and I have a couple of spare bulbs too as no doubt the generic bulbs wont last as long as the legitimate one

Much better than dropping $200 on a bulb !!

SS