Mini Bulb & Mini Bulb Holder Buying Guide for DIY Electronics

In India, it is oddly difficult to find Mini Bulb Holders online, Mini Bulbs are possibly not sold online. Many of the readers could not follow our 1.8V mini Bulb Blinking guide Arduino Project. I had a scientific kit at childhood, which had 3 such Mini Bulb Holders. Furthermore, Indians commonly run towards “some gizmo”, so LED bulbs are easy to find than the simple bulbs in India. Shopping is Not Easy than it Sounds. Few Cents Stuffs Can be Sold at 10 times More Cost (we found so). They Have Scientific Standards, ROHS compliance and specification. Here is Mini Bulb & Mini Bulb Holder Buying Guide for DIY Electronics. When we are saying Mini Bulb, we are meaning the common bulbs used in Torchlights/Flashlights.

Mini Bulb & Mini Bulb Holder Buying Guide : Scientific Matters

Mini Bulb & Mini Bulb Holders are very important electrical component. We disfavor LED as replacement option to the mini bulbs. Principles of LED must be known for Learning purpose. LED, CFL saves electricity is fact for everyday’s life, not of scientific importance.

Mini Bulb is Lightbulb in scientific terminology.

Mini Bulb holder is Lightbulb Socket With E 10 Edison screw bases in scientific terminology. These are used in Physics Laboratory, Electrical Engineering. The official specification for Edison screw (ES) standard socket has specification. It is scientifically known as Miniature Edison Screw (MES), is designated the number E10 with 10 mm base diameter, and IEC 60061-1 standard sheet mention it with the number 7004-22.

Thomas Alva Edison licensed that thread in 1909 with right-hand threaded metal bases (caps) which screw into a matching threaded sockets (lamp holders). That is the standard product. Thomson-Houston Electric Company and Mazda company had monopoly of that design at that time.

That holder is known as MES (E10) Batten Holder. It has two parts – detachable metal (preferably brass) E10 Bulb socket and corresponding base, usually of black color of scientific grade material including porcelain.

Mini Bulb & Mini Bulb Holder Buying Guide for DIY Electronics

Mini Bulb Holder aka MES Lampholder can be searched and found by web searching with the phrase E10 Bulb Holders. Bad quality material sold at US $0.29 – 0.33 / Piece. Whereas good quality are sold at $1.99. RadioShack sells them in America with the name E-10 Compact Threaded Light Base.

The same stuff is sold in UK and shipped to the whole earth from Rapid Electronics (rapidonline.com) with the name 10mm MES (E10) Black Bulb Holder Batten.

Most innovative designs are found at :

There is a metal lamp stand designed for installation on the breadboard. There are detailed description of various type of bases including plastic, porcelain etc on this website :

Now for India. Robomart has a cheap stuff :

And a ROHS compliant stuff at an abnormal price tag (around $10/pc) :

Clearly, for India, options are very lesser.

Conclusion : Mini Bulb & Mini Bulb Holder Buying Guide

Mini bulbs, at least readily available in real world if not available on online shops. Normally 2 AA battery torchlight bulbs are rated as 0.74 Watt, 2.47 Volt, 0.30 Amp. Good quality has brass screws. Holders, obviously good to have ceramic base and brass holder if work is on table top. Good quality non-fragile non-ceramic bases are appropriate for working on moving thing, like a robotic car. These are usually once a life purchase, better to buy a good quality thing. Bad quality holders has a basic problem – their holder will rotate when you will try to screw or unscrew the bulb! We do not recommend non-brass as invariably they accumulate rust with time. Porcelain base with brass is the best choice, although costly. Very cheap stuffs have somehow molded plastic and the metal socket can not be separated from the plastic base.

Needless to say, a non-ROHS compliant holder can create plain short-circuit and blow anything – from a development board to computer’s motherboard.