Anybody got any EOL stories they want to share? Whether it be Fluorescent, Incandescent, Mercury Vapor, Metal Halide, HPS, or LED... doesn't matter --
post them here. Lets have some fun.
I've got tons of EOL stories from when I was a kid, especially in school, but also at home. I'll share those stories another time.
Unfortunately I missed an EOL show just today, at Walmart, unexpectedly. One of the possible F25T8 3 footer lamps, (I think they may be 3 footers, but
I could be incorrect... they do look a tad bit shorter) in a small commercial refrigerator that holds salmon, crab meat and other seafoods, was finally
at it's EOL. Easily noticeable, since there was mercury migration. This lamp was normally much brighter... so I knew something was up.
The good end was brighter but dim, and the bad end was dimmer and definitely pink.
The end blackening was complete... and I caught it doing crazy hotspot movements, with incandescent-like filament glow, but it quickly stopped and did
nothing more. I sat there staring at it a bit to see if it would EOL, but unfortunately I didn't have much time since Walmart was set to close at 6pm
for Christmas Eve... sooo... yep. Missed EOL show. But this gave me the idea to make a thread about EOL shows on LG.

I saw an amazing EOL show. One of my neighbours had an old 1970s fluorescent fixture for 4ft tubes (36/40w). They gave it to me. It had become EOL long ago, around 2009. The lamp would turn on when the starter was removed, but the ballast had a loud hum. I replaced the T8 tube with a much more fitting T12 in the fixture, and decided to run the EOL T8 on an IS ballast. The T8 swirled for hours and the end became orange and burning hot. Then it suddenly lost vacuum, not silently, but with a loud pop!


Another time, I had an F40T12 daylight eol lamp that I wanted to see the burnout of more clearly. So with some heat I loosened the lamp cement and got the endcaps off. Then I ran it on an IS balast with the end of the tube being the perfect windows to see. I also hooked up a power supply to the end with a working filament, and got it to glow as bright as a 10w incandescent. So basically, this was a simultaneous burnout of the lamp and the filament.


I have some more EOL lamps, but they are very rare and I don't want to kill them.

in 2007 my family installed CFL bulbs on vanity light fixtures in the master bathroom to replace old incandescent globe lights. One night in 2018 I was taking a shower in the bathroom when one of the CFLs started flickering, and it even made popping noises. I got out to see the EOL show and the bulb self extinguished after 2 minutes after heavy flickering. Toward the end there is an orange glow in the base before the bulb went dark, but I was not expecting a burnt electrode smell afterwards. I took the bulb out and it was a dollar store off-brand CFL bulb.

I've had a somewhat similar occurrence happen with one of my CFL's a few years ago, but this was a result of a broken filament, due to transferring
to a different apartment unit in my apartment complex:
https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=1854&pos=28&pid=227998.
I guess the lamp got bumped around somehow during the move, even though I tried my best to prevent that from happening, but the filament broke off
and there was no EOL protection. That burn mark was the end result. From what I remember, I would not allow it to continue any further. haha... I was
too scared.

My most memorable one happened in December 2020, it was a typical working week morning, I was in the shower, it was about 6:30am.
I heard a scream from the kitchen, (not an absolute fear scream), but that scream women do when something makes them jump! 🤣
Getting down stairs I met the missus in the kitchen with a dazed and confused look on her face!
She said there was a loud, electrical pop, a bright flash of blue from the top of the kitchen units, and some form of projectile shoot across the kitchen ceiling!

She then looked back to the point of the flash to see a small plume of smoke rising up above the top of the units! 🤨
The culprit?, I have 12, GU10, LED lamps at the top of the kitchen units, mounted on their side that throws light across the ceiling creating a neat up lighting effect, and it was one of these ‘mini cannons’ that was the cause!
After taking the thing apart, I found one of the capacitors exploded, with all that stringy hairy stuff protruding from the bottom like the rocket flames from Saturn 5! 🤣🤣🤣
This explosion was enough to forcefully eject the plastic cover from the lamp, and send it across the kitchen at questionable speed! 🤪

I’ve never had such an EOL on any other lamp in the house!

Best one I had was in my living room light. It takes 5 E14 lamps, originally halogen, but made the switch to LED 6 years ago. The second inning of LED lamps came in Oct 2021. One of them, two months later, went out like a roman candle. It was flickering and buzzing for a minute, before going out and erupting smoke for a solid 5 seconds with a very loud hissing to go along with it!