Pentair/American Products 400 watt Amerlite Epoxy Resin

[arizona480]

I went to do a bulb change on this fixture which is date-coded from 2006, my rule is usually if I can't see the wires under the honey-colored epoxy resin or if the fixture smells like an oven, I replace it.

I noticed that the resin is black in this fixture, but it does not look or smell bad. Do you all know if Pentair is/was using black-colored resin during 2006? I've seen it in waaay older fixtures.

 

[Citizen]

I went to do a bulb change on this fixture which is date-coded from 2006, my rule is usually if I can't see the wires under the honey-colored epoxy resin or if the fixture smells like an oven, I replace it.

I noticed that the resin is black in this fixture, but it does not look or smell bad. Do you all know if Pentair is/was using black-colored resin during 2006? I've seen it in waaay older fixtures.

I don't know about the epoxy coloring but I would take a multimeter to the light and/or the circuit to detmine if the light actually needs replacing. I'd prefer to go off of a meter reading than a smell.

 

[gtemkin]

I imagine arizona480 is judging whether or not the epoxy has degraded from lamp heat by seeing if it's been heat darkened or smells burnt. A multimeter probably wouldn't give you that type of information unless things were extremely bad. Don't know the answer to his question, but it's quite common for manufacturers to qualify different resins so they're not locked into just one supplier. I recall there was a severe shortage of one manufacturer's resin product when their source of base components experienced a plant fire which shut down production for quite some time.

 

[arizona480]

Yes, the socket looks very healthy and another bulb works fine in it, just want to make sure the resin is supposed to be that color.

 

[racket]

Yes, the socket looks very healthy and another bulb works fine in it, just want to make sure the resin is supposed to be that color.

In recent years I can't recall seeing a light fixture with clear resin. The pentair amerlites have had opaque black resin for a long time. Unless the resin is mushy or falling apart It should be OK.

 

[ps0303]

Just curious, what percentage of bulbs have you changed out and later had to come back and pull the entire light? I've been in the industry for some time now and I have never heard of anyone doing what you do with changing the entire fixture out because of smell or resin color.

 

[arizona480]

The Pentair rep confirmed they use the black resin, so I will continue to use the light with a bulb and gasket change.

 

[arizona480]

- - - Updated - - -

Just curious, what percentage of bulbs have you changed out and later had to come back and pull the entire light? I've been in the industry for some time now and I have never heard of anyone doing what you do with changing the entire fixture out because of smell or resin color.

When I first started off many years ago, quite a number of fixtures I replaced because they just didn't look or smell "healthy". A lot of them smelled like an oven. I was thinking that both the 400 watt bulbs in the 8 3/8 in. and 250 watts in the 4 in. fixtures were at the tipping point of being too hot even with the surrounding water to radiate away the heat.

With an electrical appliance submerged in water, I definitely erred on the side of caution if I could not clearly see the wires even with a trusty GFCI. Most of my SPA fixtures that are not X10 dimmable, I would put a permanent dimmer right in the junction box at half-bright and they last forever as I needed only the lumen s produced by 125 watts vs 250 watts. The pool fixtures I would dim at 90% and they would last quite a while (9 yrs for this 2006 fixture). The cord is still black and it doesn't have that wrinkled-finger look that some really old fixtures have, so it definitely can go back in the pool.