Bulbs bulbs bulbs

Are they all the same manufacturer and either bought at the same time or the same production run? I ask because the manufacturer might have gotten a load of sub-standard bulbs.

Manufacturers and Product Numbers would help.  It's possible that all of them predate command control and so are not made to be run at 18 VAC for anything longer than a few seconds or minutes at the most.

Mike 

Sorry

All MTH bayonet,  believe is what they are called -18 volt

except for one

and I just bought holders and LEDs for it

I don’t recall replacing these bulbs

and I’ve owned the cabooses for a while

and they were all bought used..

I don’t believe I’ve ever bought a new caboose. Possibly less than 50 of my rolling stock was bought new.

It's possible the prior owner installed under rated bulbs.  There should be numbers on each bulb around the metal part.  That would tell us the working voltage of the bulb.  Current that it draws depends on the bulb. 

@Mellow Hudson Mike posted:

Manufacturers and Product Numbers would help.  It's possible that all of them predate command control and so are not made to be run at 18 VAC for anything longer than a few seconds or minutes at the most.

Mike

Sorry, I should have clarified.  I meant Manufacturers' names and Product Numbers for the cabooses, not the bulbs.

So it's clear that they're be all MTH cabooses?

We just need to determine when each of them were made, and their Product Numbers would help with that.

Mike

Most older cabooses were run on post war conventional control transformers and 12v bulbs were common.  Running them at a constant 18v will shorten there life ,sometimes to seconds.

When I add lights to homemade cabooses or other cars like passenger cars to lower the original lights to lower wattage operation, I use a 12v mini Christmas tree light and it runs and lasts very well on my conventional controlled layout.  Also much cheaper at about 10 cents each and a used string of lights give free sockets, bulb holder and pig tails.  Typical wattage of regular bulbs is 2 to 3 watts verses a mini Christmas tree bulb bing 1/2 watt.

Charlie

An 18 volt bulb powered at 18 volts for any length of time will generate a lot of heat, obviously.

Try a 24 volt bulb like #5627 (5w) or #5637 (10w).  They will be dimmer but will last longer and not cook your caboose.  You might want to also consider LED's with a constant voltage supply like GRJ's 20110 LED lighting regulator.

I’m going LED in that caboose

but the rest of my cabeese will get typical replacement parts

until such time I feel like upgrading