The new bulb I payed £18 for just blew up the first time printing with it. It's for a focomat V35 with heiland Splitgrade System. Any ideas what could be wrong? I think something is up with my enlarger.

Sounds like something is wrong with the enlarger circuit allowing too much voltage to the lamp.

Sounds messy. Is it a 120V bulb, seeing as you're in a 240V country?

You paid how much!:o What's so special about this lamp?
Either a faulty lamp, not uncommon, send it back and demand another, or possibly your transformer is faulty and giving the lamp a higher voltage than it likes, could be why the pevious lamp went. Check the output voltage with a voltmeter, or get an electrical shop to do it for you.

Nothing special about it. It's just the only bulb the Focomat takes. It says 12V 75W

It's strange. I had this secondhand about a year ago and it hasn't given me problems before.

Nothing special about it. It's just the only bulb the Focomat takes. It says 12V 75W

In that case it's a very special price for an not very special lamp.:( But I understand that they can be difficult to source - at a sencible price.
Anyway I hope you get to the bottom of the problem quickly.

I'd try Technical Lamps Tel: 0208 89796652. Its website is www.techlamps.co.uk. I got two lamps for my Durst M605 for about this price.

Nova also used to sell lamps. I bought my first replacement there and it went after a few hours. On reporting it Nova replaced it there and then. Of course it's worth checking first that there isn't a reason for it blowing

pentaxuser

Sounds to me like you have a shorted transformer circuit. Got a electrical meter to check?

Make sure you have the enlarger set for the correct input voltage, column base on the back side.

Do you HAVE TRANSFORMER at all :)

Do you HAVE TRANSFORMER at all :)

With a V35 the xformer's built into the base.