You might consider starting the bulb with a lower voltage to keep the current well below the 9 amp continuous current and then ease the voltage up to the nominal.  This should slowly warm up the filament.

TTFN

The resistance of the cold filament is very low and your powersupply is probably not able to give the staring current, the advice from IRstuff might work.

Why do you want to run it on DC, any 10A transformer will do the job.

Greetings Aksel

To make a long story short: We have a highspeed sprinkler test unit that we use to shine UV light at the Detector
and place prox sensors at the nozzle. When the light is energized, a timer is activated. Once the the water comes out the nozzle, it stops the timer; hence measuring the response time of your system. The UV bulb when lit, reads 170VDC.

We have an IR detector system as well. So the bulb I'm trying to get to work, does both UV/IR. Basically this bulb is a 12VDC automotive halogen.

Anyone have any circuits on these? I will keep digging.

Thanks,
Nodoubt

If you have no resistance, are you sure your bulb is good? Just touching a Quartz-Halogen bulb can cause it to burn out, from the oil on your skin. I'm not familar with your bulb, but most automotive headlights are wired in parallel from the battery with nothing other than a relay. On newer cars the driving lights are in series with a module. I'm sure a shop that specializes in automotive electrics would be able to help you.

I guess that the resistance is so low that a normal multimeter reads 0.

Greetings Aksel

I would prefer to use UV and IR LED combination, if possible.  

If you must use halogen bulb, I suggest use AC temp.control in closed loop using external sensor
and SCR.
 

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