My lamp since pulling it out of its box has had a little jingle to it. Upon inspection it turns out there are some very small glass fragments that are loose inside, but there is absolutely no signs of cracks or scratches in anything that is glass on teh bulb. Is anyone else's bulb like this?

(It is my belief that a bulb can EXPLODE if the glass structure is damaged, this is why it concerns me)

Another question, does anyone's bulb have black spotting on the white painted part of the "filament" assembly? Mine spotted black after initially running in a glass jar, I think I overheated it as it began flickering red and green light. It was kinda pretty actually, lol. I just want to know.


I couldn't seem to get a clear picture of it, but this shows roughly what I mean.

I had a similar problem (I think). You can check my PLOG for a few posts made on the subject. Anyway, the pieces of glass (sorta brownish), I believe came from when I screwed the bulb into the mogul. I believe the pressure from the center prong pushed too hard on the bottom portion of the lamp, fracturing some of the material there. As you can read in my PLOG, I tried it and it worked without any problems. I used this lamp for about 3 month without incident... i'm now using an EYE lamp due to higher lumens... works better (ie. brighter) for my 140" projection. I think the difference with your bulb is that the debris is near the actual arc chamber. My thoughts are, as long as the center arc chamber has not been compromised, you should be ok. Just proceed with caution to be on the safe side.

good luck.

edit: Picture advice... if you want to take better close up pictures (ie. in focus) then you will have to be in a macro mode for your camera to focus properly. This mode is often a choice even with a point and shoot camera. It is often depicted as a little icon with a flower or something like that. (try taking another shot and update you pic, it would be great to be able to see your picture clearly.)

No, the black spotting and the glass shards are two SEPEREATE things and questions. They are UNRELATED to eachother. The black spotting happened after running the bulb in a jar (please don't ask why) and the glas shards where there since new.

I forgot all about that "detail" flower setting, thanks!

From reading your PLOG, I found the source of my glass shards. The base, between the two electrical contacts, the black part.. it is cracked. That is where the glass came from. I was sold a cracked bulb!

Actually, my other bulb (brandnew) is cracked there too.

What aboutt he blackspots? Does anyone else have that?

Glass shards: This is likely just a normal consequence of the bulb manufacture process. When the glass is cut so that the base can be attatched, it sometimes has some leftover around the edge, which gets knocked loose when the base is attatched. If there aren't any cracks in the glass, I wouldn't worry about it.

Brown spots: This is a symptom of overheating, IMO. As long as the lamp is burning properly, I wouldn't worry about it. It may indicate that you've lost some of your lamp's lifespan, however.

great pics. the center arc chamber looks perfectly fine (to me anyway). I wouldn't worry about those little black dots, but then again, i'm certainly no expert.

yes, those chards are exactly what I experienced, and exactly where they came from... what I referred to as "the bottom part of the lamp". the base, although looks black, I notice that when light passes through the shards, they are actually a dark (brownish) kind of color.

good news is that this does not appear to effect the bulb in any way. my personal feeling is that the Ushio bulbs are not very robust in the thread area as compared to the EYE lamp, which is very robust. no fracture problems using the EYE lamp when inserted into the same mogul.