Halogen limiter lamp instead of incandescent

[Chuck H]

Yepper. I moved from the woods so I had to give up my birds. I liked raising chickens. We used the heat lamps because the comparably dim light allowed them to sleep and kept them from freezing. Chickens aren't real happy below teen temps and are on borrowed time below zero. At least that's what I've read. I never took a chance. More important than anything is that their water doesn't freeze. You don't notice but they drink quite a bit. I figure farm and feed stores should have the lamps. That's where I got mine.

[J M Fahey]

All very good ideas.
The point with the incandescen lamp, compared to some power resistor (say, a toaster) is that they are PTC, so at idle they do relatively little, yet on a short they raise resistance a lot and limit current hard.
Not linear at all (the good way) and because of very low mass, very fast.

No such things happen with, say, an oven resistance or any other regular power resistor.

[g1]

Agree with the PTC issue. The other major point of using a bulb (sorry to state something so obvious) is that it functions as a very quick visual indicator. Using a power resistor or other device would require some other means of an indicator.

[52 Bill]

I would think that if you bought a box of 4 regular bulbs and put them away in a safe place you would be set for life. The lamps rarely if ever turn on to reach full wattage and will probably outlast the average tech's career.