Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I've gone through 3 modelling lamps on my Einstein so far and the same, consistent pattern has reoccurred each time: the lamp is fine for the first session but upon powering up for a second session (a day or more later), the lamp appears to be burned out.

Is anyone else seeing this problem or have any ideas as to what might be causing it?

How long was were your sessions? I haven't had this problem on my Einsteins.

I have had the same experience. I have gone through two with relatively light usage... So far, I find this a major hassle.

An hour or two each.

I agree sopha - having to put in a new lamp each time you turn on the unit IS a major hassle. I'm just trying to determine if it's something that I did/am doing or if the unit needs to go back. Which unit & firmware are you running? I'm running a v2 with fw rev 22. Also, does any one know how to reset to factory settings? I don't think I've mucked with any of settings on the diagnostics page but I'd like to eliminate that as a possibility.

I have lost one of four modeling lamps after about 20 hrs of shoot time, not all of it with modeling lamps on, and never with modeling lamps at full power. I ordered a single spare when I ordered my E640s, thinking it was overkill, since I would likely misplace/forget where I put it before ever needing it. Now I think I need to keep 4 spares on hand at all times.

Just out of curiosity, are you folks who are going through modeling lamps in 110V or 220V countries?

110 for me

Just as a data point, I have used my modeling lamps at several shoots now and even at full power and haven't had any issues with them yet (knock on wood). It is a relatively low percentage of the time that I use them overall though and I when using them at higher power I did turn them off when I wasn't actively shooting just to let everything cool (especially given I'm still v1 and don't want any melted parts). I'm still running v.20 firmware, though I don't know if that would make any difference and the possibility seems fairly remote to me that it would.

Edit: Oh, and I'm 110v.

-Daniel

I have 5 units and have used them for over 30 hours and haven't had any failures, I am using it in a 240v country. :)

Is any one touching the lamp directly? This can cause premature failure in the lamps.

This is beign brought up to the engineers as you should be getting far longer life out of them.