What type of 4pin push in bulb do I need?

[HangTime]

Light bulb in the hall has gone. It's a 4pin push in one. Bought some replacements, but they don't fit - the pins look aligned but there is two jutting out bits of plastic on opposite sides (guides I guess?) which on the existing bulb are in the centre. On the new bulbs, they are aligned significantly off centre. Probably some schoolboy mistake as I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a bulb for that fitting, many years ago.

The only difference I can think of is the new bulb is 18w whereas old bulb is 10w (I wanted something brighter). Do different wattages have different fittings or something? I never normally worry about that have used eg 60W and 100W bulbs (before they got banned) with normal bayonet fittings interchangeably.

 

[andy_mk3]

Yeh you'll need to match the wattage which should then match the fitting position. It has to be said, swapping wattages of lamps around isn't a great idea.

 

[SpeedFreak]

I just changed the pendant to bayonette. It was cheaper than buying the overpriced 4 pin bulbs!

 

[HangTime]

Yeh you'll need to match the wattage which should then match the fitting position. It has to be said, swapping wattages of lamps around isn't a great idea.

OK thanks. Guess I'm a luddite, used to just put whatever wattage bulb you wanted in a light fitting

 

[Adam_151]

OK thanks. Guess I'm a luddite, used to just put whatever wattage bulb you wanted in a light fitting

The problem is that these are not self ballasted lamps, the clue is that its four pin, the lamp gear is in the fitting. You'd find that even if you could get the 18w one in, and it managed to strike it and keep it struck (unlikely), then it'd only run at 10w and conversly if you'd managed to fit a 10w in an 18w fitting, and it managed to strike, then it would run at 18w, blacken very quickly and last no time at all!

As to being a luddite, these are old hat these days, it was a short lived thing where the building regs required a certain percentage of points which could only take energy efficient lamps, it was always inconvienient for the householder, and now ita backwards as it means you have to use CFL lamps which have largely been superseeded by LEDs. The whole thing disappeared a few years ago with the phasing out of incandescent lamps. but we will be changing pendant drops for many years