I have some enclosed luminaires. Every time I open them for lamp replacement, a strong, very pungent smell comes out. It's hard to explaint but I
think it smells a bit like chlorine.
I'm not sure if it comes from the lamp or the plastic lamp holder but I suspect the latter since I have used different types of lamps and the smell
has occurred with all of them.
I've also noticed that something causes the "glue" used to fix the glass bulb of incandescent lamps to the metal E27 base to deteriorate - the glass
bulb often separates from the base when trying to detach the lamp. It might be just poor quality, but I've even suspected that the same smelly gas
could have an effect.
What could be the cause of this smell? What type of plastic could emit such gas? I tried to look for a material tag in the lamp holder but didn't find
any.Mailinmypocket - 20-12-2015 at 04:46
It could be ozone... Especially if there is some deterioration of the glue. hissingnoise - 20-12-2015 at 05:28
Quote:
What type of plastic could emit such gas?
Urea-formaldehyde resins release fishy amines when heated!
Bert - 20-12-2015 at 09:56
Phenolic plastics were/are common in high temperature use. The smell god awful when burned or over heated- I used to have a job in an electronic
research instrument making shop where I had to drill and mill phenolic laminate board, we were using it for mounting hardware and as an insulator in
high voltage equipment. Yech.
I was taught to ID unknown plastics by taking a small sliver and BURNING it, observing the behavior and smelling the results. See here:
Very handy list. If I had to guess I would pick Melamines. Common in certain plastics made in China. I had to take apart NiCad packs to replace the
cells a few years back when I encountered this awful smell. It was a hard plastic shell (two shells glued together to form the body of the pack), an
odd shade of yellow, trending slightly orange which I thought was an odd choice of color for the drill as well as the battery packs. While you could
notice the odor slightly, exposing fresh surface as in cutting or even bending until it breaks yields the smell many times stronger. Once you get a
nose full years can go by and that terrible smell is still very clear in your mind. I get the amine fish statement but it does not do what I remember
justice. Swimming through a pool of dead fish does not even come close to that stuff after exposing a fresh surface.mayko - 21-12-2015 at 06:50
Yikes... I felt dirty just doing the Beilstein testtubelectric - 23-12-2015 at 10:48
I think it doesn't smell like ozone, the smell is not as "fresh" as ozone. It doesn't exactly smell like fish either.
Thanks for the list Bert, looks interesting. It says formaldehyde... maybe it's the closest. It might be somewhat similar to how those FR-2 circuit
boards smell.
