Do KinoFlo Bulbs go bad?

chappelldigital

chappelldigital

Well-known member
Picked up a set of Barfly 200s - They came with true match daylight and tungsten bulbs.
The tungsten ones look great, read 3210
The daylight ones looked really cold, so I let warm up for 30+ mins -> they are reading over 7000k.

Trying to figure out if its just the tubes that need to be replaced. I have 6 daylight tubes that the kit came with and they all read over 7000k.
I believe the marking on them is the date, which is April 2008 (on all the daylight and tungsten tubes)

TNo way of knowing how much use the tubes have seen (the fixtures look almost brand new)

Thoughts?

Thanks!
 
It's been a while since I've used Kino lights, but I don't think it would change color temp over time. The bulbs are filled with a gas that when the electricity flows through it, will produce charged electrons that emit light coming in contact with the phosphorous coating, which lines the inner bulb (lamp) If it works, then I would guess the gas is intact and as long as you can see the lining isn't discolored there's no reason that I know of that would cause 2k degree shift, if that make any sense. lol hard to explain. Anyways, as they heat up, a shift is expected, not a huge color shift though. You might be best off with gelling the daylight bulbs. So much for true temp huh, lol
 
I thought that there IS a third set of bulbs available that are at about 7000K.

I've seen fixtures sold with "daylight" bulbs that were 7000K as opposed to the expected 5600K or 6000K.

See if you can read a part number on the bulbs and Google them up.
 
Yeah... wtf...? :huh:
I can get them to 5660, but I have to use 1/8 CTS, 1/8 CTO, and 1/8 MINUSGREEN to do it... which drops down the output a fair bit.... Do-able... but I guess I'm more wanting to determine if they should around there anyway..... and wether or not its the bulbs, ballast, etc..... I get it with both fixtures I have, and any combination of the 6 daylight tubes.
 
They do eventually drift over time. I usually used 32k lamps in my Kino's and gelled instead of switching out to daylight unless I needed all the punch I could get. I can't say what the daylight lamps do, but the 32k lamps will shift magenta when they get older. I rarely use my Kino's anymore and the last set of 32k lamps that I bought have all leaned magenta, even after warming up and being "run in". FYI: I'm talking about my 400 Diva's. I think I'm still running the original lamps in my BarFly's from probably 2009/2010.
 
Yeah might just be they've all aged together.
Going to try and get my hands on new bulbs and see how that goes - will update!

I'm picking up a Diva next week actually to go with these - switching out all my tungsten lights -> They physically did not look so great, and were a bit more of a pain to deal with. Was hoping to use daylight tubes, to avoid competing with windows... + my LEDs (aputure 672) are daylight as well. I guess worst case I can go tungsten on these and the Diva and gel the LEDs
 
Update - apparently they do go wonky!
I have no idea how many hours are on the bulbs I have. I bought a new bulb and installed it -> iPhone photo not the best to judge from, but its a very obviously different! (These are both daylight kino true match bulbs)
kinobulb.jpg
 
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