Review on Simba Lighting Replacement Recessed JDR by Mike Sutton

A while back I found that out of all the lights I've tried, halogen lights work best for efficiently directing IR (heat) to where the reptiles need it. I once accidentally broke the lens and found that it generates more heat. It appears that most glasses partially absorb a certain wavelength of IR radiation. This bulb actually does a better job of adding heat to my bearded dragon than the small 25w ceramic IR bulbs I've tried that send heat in all directions. The only downside is that the glass lens absorbs quite a bit of IR. I intentionally cracked and removed the lens from one to test the transmission of IR through the glass. To my surprise, at a distance of a few inches, the one with the lens intact raised the surface temperature to 145°F and the one with the lens removed raised the temperature to 165°F. Because animals absorb infrared radiation better than most dry materials, the difference was even more pronounced, when I measured the surface temperature of my bearded dragons. After being at 10 inches under the lens for a while it was about 95F, but after switching to the one with the lens removed it measured 101F which is almost perfect for a kite. Note, however, that this is extra heat. I also have a 70w metal halide lamp at about 16 inches but it doesn't put out enough heat. That bulb almost makes the difference, but I think I'll go for 35W, which is a better combination. Also, I used a UV color change test card, both with and without a lens, and there was no difference, but in both cases the UV output was very low and barely registered, and that's nothing compared to the release of UV-B metal halide.