Smoke from light setup

[nicki]

I have a 4 bulb T5HO fixture. I recently had to move my setup to a different floor. When putting things back together I noticed a buzzing sounds right before seeing a some smoke come from where the one bulb fits into the socket. Then of course it died. The 3 other bulbs seem fine.
Does anyone have any input on what could have caused that to happen? I don't have any spare bulbs to test in its place and am unsure if I should try another in case something more can go wrong.

[Carolla]

I couldn't tell you and am not sure what you'd try other than getting another bulb to test it. Probably there is some way to test if the circuit is good with a circuit tester, but that is beyond my skill! Oh duh - first thing would be to try the "dead" bulb in a working slot of your fixture, that will tell you if its the bulb or the fixture.

Now my brother, who is an electrical engineer and all around computer nerd and expert told me that all electronics live by the power of blue smoke and, when the blue smoke escapes, your electronics die. It does sound rather like a "death by the loss of blue smoke" scenario, but not now you need to find out if it is the bulb that died or the fixture! I know when the blue smoke escaped my last computer monitor, there was no more life in it... hehe

[Catt Mandu]

Also try the reverse - put one of the good bulbs into the fixture where the bad bulb was.
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[nicki]

I have no clue why I couldn't even think to swap bulbs. I think maybe the buzzing and smoke worried me something might go wrong and spark a fire. Anyway I took one of the good bulbs and tried it in that slot and it works fine. I took the dead bulb and tried it in another spot and it flickered a bit but I could see some dark spots inside the bulb. So I'm glad it's just the bulb and I don't need to invest in a new fixture. Thanks for the obvious solutions!

[Carolla]

Sometimes it just helps to have someone else look at a situation. Glad you could figure it out so easily!

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Glad everything worked out and the fixture is still good!

cheers,
BD