There are literally hundreds of different kinds of light bulbs. There was a page dedicated to the more
common ones, and this page is where all the others fit in.
To begin with we have a not so common light, but one most people are familiar with, the 75 watt "flood light". It's super bright, and has a reflected coating all along the inside of it to direct the light forward.
75 watt video 1
75 watt video 2
This metal coating proved to be just as conductive as copper wire, but this time on the inside of the bulb and combined with the arc plasma created quite a display
This is a slightly less common light bulb, but still considered a flood light. Examination of it revealed it to be a 45 watt halogen bulb. These bulbs are most often used outside as spot lights on plants and such.
45 watt video
This bulb also had a metal coating on its inside that gave off blue sparks and provided one of our most amazing light shows.
The person who donated this light bulb claimed that it was an RJ-45. Having no readable marking on the outside, we took his word for it.
Plant light video
We removed the tempered glass bottom from the microwave to clean it, and thought it wasn't really needed. That was not a good idea. The metal connector of the light bulb was in contact with the metal bottom of the microwave, and conducted energy through it. This caused arching through the metal and into the glass and ended with the bulb shattering.
These lights may be widely available, and used often, but these fluorescence lights are not common in an average house. The gases inside them produced plasma arcs unmatched in brightness by a standard 60 watt bulb.
Fluorescence video 1
Fluorescence video 2 (taken apart)
Fluorescence video 3
We took apart the plastic coating on the bottom of the bulb to see what was inside it. The glass orb inside it created some amazing color, when microwaved.
This next light bulb is very uncommon. It is highly unlikely that you would find this bulb anywhere in your average house, rather, these mercury vapor bulbs seem to be used in lamp posts of the kind that dot the sides of the road. Which in fact, is where this light bulb was found, on the side of the road by a lamp post.
At first, we believed that it was a lack of power with our main microwave that contributed to the lack of show. We were kindly granted use of a roommate's newer, more powerful microwave. But that two yielded poor results. Looking closely, you can see some faint light being produced.
Mercury light 1 (mike's microwave 1)
Mercury light 2 (mikes' microwave 2)
Mercury light 3 (Jeff's microwave 1)
Mercury light 4 (Jeff's microwave 2)
We finally determined that a microwave is just not powerful enough to cause any reaction between the various components inside the light bulb. Another contributing factor was the heavy coat of white paint on the bulb. This was not the dust that is inside most bulbs, it was paint.
We call this light bulb the "projector" light, because this type of light is the one in mike's first projector. However, this bulb did not come from the projector, we found it outside Home Depot, on one of our weekly trips there. We are unsure of the exact wattage of this bulb, but we do know it is bright. Even the experiment proved that:
Projector light video
