Light bulb limiter tured bright at power on

[Saywhat71]

I just plugged a mixer into my light bulb limiter and the bulb lit up fast then faded. Is this normal?

Thanks!

[sluckey]

I just plugged a mixer into my light bulb limiter and the bulb lit up fast then faded. Is this normal?

Probably. But brightness is relative. All depends on the normal current draw of the device under test and the bulb wattage.

[xtian]

Sounds correct. Typically, the bulb will get bright right at power up, as the reservoir filter fills, then it should fade.

[maxkracht]

Your mixer is going to glow brighter faster than most tube guitar stuff. Presumably, everything is solid state, so there isn't much warmup time before it pulls full current, and the reservoir caps are going to be massive compared to what were used to in tube amps.

[Stevem]

The turn on current surge is much higher in a tube amp when the heaters are warming up then even what you would see with a 200 watt rms solid state amp getting powered up.

[maxkracht]

I'm probably conflating memories of solid state bass amps and powered mixers, or some other category of things I try to avoid working on which glow brightly and sometimes won't turn on all the way with a lightbulb limiter...

[Stevem]

Yes. With too high a wattage limiter bulb a SS amp may not turn on / power up enough to even idle.
Many times when the voltage is too low all you will hear out of the speaker is hum which might lead you to think that the amp has a problem when it does not.