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Author Topic: Xenon Bulb Question Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-27-2003 03:01 PM                     So... do you use this X-Ray gun often? You keep it in your back pocket or something? Can you tell what color underwear people are wearing? Can it see through lead? Just kidding! But seriously, what do you use it for?  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 02-27-2003 03:24 PM                    Thanks for the info, guys. (And the physics radioactivity lesson!)  |  IP: Logged Ray Bernardi Expert Film Handler Posts: 120 From: Antrim, NH, USA Registered: Feb 2003 posted 02-27-2003 04:03 PM                     I've had several bulbs fail, but I've never had a "non-passive failure". The last time I had a bulb fail was right after it was rotated and focused. I assume I damaged the seal in some way when I did it and air got to it. I always wear a face shield when I'm working on these bulbs, and I never work them hot. You're asking for it if you do that.  |  IP: Logged Mike Rendall Film Handler Posts: 78 From: Southampton, Hampshire, UK Registered: Nov 2002 posted 02-27-2003 05:13 PM                     Sorry, I didn't make it clear earlier, Cinema Projection is my part-time (one night a week) job. My day job is a scientist working at developing fuel cells for a large American car company. I keep my X-ray specs in my back pocket for those all important underwear viewing tasks Mike  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-27-2003 05:18 PM                     So, sort of like the way they use X-Ray cameras to check to see that the welds in pipelines are sound, etc? Pretty cool!  |  IP: Logged Jack Johnston Film Handler Posts: 20 From: Rancho Cucamonga, CA, USA Registered: May 2001 posted 02-28-2003 04:51 PM                     Xenon bulbs do not explode...they express themselves dynamically!  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-28-2003 09:38 PM                     Ever watch the TV show, "Beakman's World"? Explosion: When something gets REALLY big, REALLY fast!  |  IP: Logged Chris Wootten Film Handler Posts: 50 From: Moonlit Cinema, RAAF Tindal, N.T. Australia Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-01-2003 06:31 AM                     I really dont think you should worry too much about the worry of radioactivity...rather the worry of the effects of the explosion after the failure. I always impress on my trainess that you should take all care with Xenons, and to treat them like they would a hand grenade, with the ring pulled. Helps em to realise the danger I think.  |  IP: Logged Mike Rendall Film Handler Posts: 78 From: Southampton, Hampshire, UK Registered: Nov 2002 posted 03-02-2003 01:49 PM                     I have never had a lamp blow on me, but after I smash them up before disposing of them next time I will take the electrodes to the lab and measure the radioactivity ! Will post the result, but it may be some time!  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-03-2003 09:11 AM                     Let's just imagine that I know a place where there are about 50 or 60 of those electrodes sitting on a shelf in a cardboard box. When lamps are taken out and the glass is broken (safely) the electrodes are fished out and kept in a box, hopefully, to save them for recycling or reclaimation. Are THAT many of them, all in one place, getting to be a hazard? What about recycling? I KNOW that the local scrap metal dealers don't know what to do with them. I couldn't convince them that they were anything but hard steel. They would only offer me 50 cents per pound! I KNOW they are worth more than that simply based on their tungsten content. Anybody know of a place that would buy/take them?  |  IP: Logged Aaron Mehocic Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 804 From: New Castle, PA, USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-03-2003 11:21 AM                     I recycle the copper trigger wires. Those are about the easiest thing to remove and the junkyards know what they are. I usually wait until I have a few pounds and copper is up. Talk about other staff members busting your balls and calling you stereotypical slurs.  |  IP: Logged Bill Langfield Master Film Handler Posts: 280 From: Prospect, NSW, Australia Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-03-2003 12:28 PM                        OH the days of copper droppings from the carbon arc rods. (2000ft reels, adjusting the arc every 5mins, heating up food, lighting cigarettes.. Those were the days.) Even though it would takes months to get a few pounds, of copper, the scrap yard would pay a hell of lot more than I thought they would. Can't remember the figures (that was like 78-81) but I liked taking those buckets to the scrap yard. It think it was like $120 of copper in tin that normally holds 10 kilos of Choc-Top Ice cream. Aaron, TRIGGER wires? You'd need hundreds of them??????? At 1500$ a bulb, your in for a long wait to get a pound (or 2 Kilos) and about a million dollars of used bulbs to get 10 bucks! Bill.  |  IP: Logged Aaron Mehocic Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 804 From: New Castle, PA, USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-05-2003 11:55 AM                     Bill, Sure it takes a while to get enough to make it worth selling the copper but I'm patient. I don't buy the bulbs, my company does, so for me anything I make off the copper is pure profit. I change roughly 10 bulbs per year, plus any other precious metals I find laying around the theater, and it doesn't take to long in building up a supply to sell. Moreover, I have the space to store this stuff and it is not a sloppy mess back at the house. I'm doing my "part" to help out the environment.  |  IP: Logged David Graham Rose Expert Film Handler Posts: 187 From: Cambridge, UK Registered: Sep 2002 posted 03-05-2003 01:47 PM                     Just to clarify a point. The Thorium doping used in the electrodes of Xenon lamp is there to increase the work function of the electrode i.e. to make it easier for electrons to leave the cathode hence requiring less energy to bridge and maintain the arc gap.  |  IP: Logged Mike Rendall Film Handler Posts: 78 From: Southampton, Hampshire, UK Registered: Nov 2002 posted 03-06-2003 02:56 AM                     Isn't it to decrease the work function? The work function is the amount of energy required to remove an electron from the Fermi level to the Vacuum level, increasing it makes it harder to remove an electron. (sorry to be pedantic) Bill, regarding your bucket of precious metals, I have a tub of platinum left over from experiments, I wonder how much that would fetch (if only it was mine to sell!) I am hoping that someone will just ask me to get rid of it  |  IP: Logged

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