Hallo Steve,

I made an inrush current measurement of a 12V/170mA (2W) lamp:



Inrush peak current is about 8.8 times higher than continous (rated) current!
Adapted to Mahmoods 180mA lamp, this would result in a peak inrush current of about 1.6A! I don't think, that a standard Darlington driver like ULN2003 will withstand this enormous inrush current, as maximum peak current is specified to 600mA per output. A BD135, on the other hand, can withstand 3A for 1msec. But the current limiting action makes, that only about 0.2A is flowing. Even if the total lamp voltage of 12V would drop across BD135, only 2.4W will drop across BD135, which is well within the limits, when mounted on a cooling plate, as Michael suggested.

Regards,
Kai