the light over the table in the house we're renting burns brighter and hotter than any domestic bulb i've ever seen. after a couple days of involuntary forehead tans i took a closer look and realize it's a 250w halogen. for comparison, that's 18 times the power drain of a standard 14w LED. i don't think we have 18 light bulbs in our entire house, and this one tiny supernova is guzzling energy on par with a late-model GPU (not to mention the fact the socket's only rated for 200w).

i figure there's a more efficient replacement out there, which leads me down a rabbit hole of halogen socket and bulb length research. turns out this is an R7S porcelain which accepts 118mm T3s. i could just downgrade the wattage, but i'd prefer an LED. this when i discover the magical world of linear bulbs. look at these chunky lil guys; they're like scaled-down carnival rides waiting to extrude puke from candy-drunk tweens. truly powerful. the one caveat is they're not as easy to come by. you can buy no-name parts online, but the reviews suggest they're at least as likely to melt into slag as to glow pleasingly upon you.

some yellow pages later i find myself in the catacombs of a local lighting supplier whose warehouse and office share the same cramped storefront. millions of bulbs piled loosely in cardboard boxes on rows of tall metal shelving. nothing is labeled according to any system i can see, but the owner recognizes my voice from the phone and immediately produces what i need.

it's beautiful, i know. there's another small hitch, which is that our dining table fixture is on a dimmer, and dimmable t3 LEDs are apparently unobtanium, but i'll cross that bridge when i come to it.

i get the new bulb installed (PSA: let the halogen cool before you grab it. it will burn you, and it will shatter. both of these are made more likely by the socket being spring-loaded. i killed the fixture at the panel and wore gloves just to be safe), and it works perfectly for ten seconds. then it starts flickering. a LOT. like,

so i turn it off. but it doesn't turn off. the LED drops to a simmering glow, angry-like. see, the dimmer has bizarre early oughts functionality: tap to turn on; hold your finger on the plate to adjust the brightness (up then down); tap to turn off; tap again to restore the last user setting. there's also a tiny recessed switch for, i guess, binarists. i can't find any information about the design online.

more reading reveals that, even if you just switch the light on and off, many dimmers produce weird behavior with LEDs because of generational incompatibilities in how power is not/supplied to the fixture. having learned this, my new plan is to replace the dimmer with a regular switch and store the unwanted guts in the basement.

will update, possibly with process photos if i remember to snap a few!