PEP BB electricity.sand.lamp - Repair a lamp (120V, 12V, car)

Hello Permies community. This is my first attempt at the PEP program. I have chosen to fix a lamp and here are the steps I've taken. The full in-depth post can be seen at Permarecycling Lamp Repair

The lamp repair I will demonstrate is the license plate light from our truck that’s been out for years.

This style of lamp socket grounds through its mount so my first thought was to check for a proper ground at the socket.  I filed the rust and paint off two areas just under the plate to bare metal to attach my test leads. I checked for continuity between the two bare areas of metal then between the bare areas and the light socket which showed good continuity to the light. Next step was to check for power or a bad filament.

I probed the wire many times but was unable to find any voltage in the circuit. I chased the wiring and came to the end of the wire which was not attached to anything nor was there anything to attach it to. I removed this lamp from the circuit and tested it at the battery. It did not light so I actually had two issues: no power and a bad filament.

Before installing the new lamp housing I filed away the rust inside its mount then I applied some dielectric grease to the ground area to prevent future rust issues. I decided to tie into the clearance light circuit since it was close and worked. I unplugged the center clearance light and applied its 12 volt current to the pigtail on my new license plate light to be sure it worked inside the mounting area.

Now I had to tie into the circuit. I clipped the wire going to the center clearance light socket then twisted the license plate light wire to it. I then applied dielectric grease to the bare copper and a bit of RTV to the wire casings to keep water out of the connection. I much prefer soldering wires in extreme environments and may come back to this in the future but for now I’m using a heat shrink type crimp connector. All the other wires under this area were crimped and they are still working.

Here is my submission for the Electricity - Sand - Repair a Lamp BB.

I am repairing a 120V lamp.  The part I'm replacing is a 3-wire/2-circuit lamp socket with a turn knob.
There is a second lamp socket connected to it so the one knob controls both lamp sockets similar to a 3-way lamp and light bulb.  Instead of low-med-hi, this socket turns on one (pointing up), or the other (pointing down), or both.  

Reason for repair: The switch/turn-knob is getting loose and no longer controls the four options distinctly, sometimes turning on both lights when only one should be on.

To document the completion of the BB, I have provided the following:
  - a before picture of the damage that is causing the lamp to not function
  - an after picture of the repaired part
  - an after picture of the lamp illuminated

Side note: this turned into an (almost) all day project with a trip to a specialty hardware store as this part is not something carried at a big box or local hardware store.  Thanks to McLendons Hardware for carrying the part!

Got an emergency call that the street lights in the parking lot of a set of flats was not working the previous night. Had to take apart most of these bollard lights to find out the problem was burnt out cables from poor installation in this particular lamp... it wouldn't have cause problems until the insulation allowed for an easy path for the electricity to flow, starts small and snowballs, especially out in the weather!

Reterminating and proper placement of the cables was the fix in this situation and got them all back in glowing order!

Moved from my Oddball submission after Mike pointed out that there is a dedicated BB for this.

We bought an old standard/floor lamp from a sale recently. The lamp was turned from a few pieces of oak and is probably close to 80 years old. Sadly, the wiring was rather unsafe as there was no earth on the brass lampholder (the bit which holds the bulb) which was also the on-off switch. This meant that any short would give you a nasty shock if you tried to switch the lamp. The existing wiring was an ugly, two-core twisted pair with brittle insulation.

I stripped out the old wiring and have recycled the copper. I then removed the lampholder and replaced it with a modern equivalent, one that includes an earth terminal. I replaced the wiring with some antique-style three-core which is much prettier (I think) and safer, plus it fits the aesthetic of the lamp. I re-used the existing plug as it felt better quality than a modern one I had lying around. Everything was secured using insulating heat-shrink tubing and tested with a meter before plugging it in.

Finally, I added a foot switch. This is less in-keeping with the age of the lamp but it is very convenient.

Whilst I was doing this, my partner had stripped off the old lampshade (which was shedding plasticky material and was a disgusting nicotine-yellow) and begun to sew a replacement using some unbleached cotton we had lying around. This job took *forever* and I'm thankful that she has the skill and patience to do it.

I've attached an after shot showing the completed shade and re-wired lamp.

All in all, the rewiring took about 45 minutes. It's not the first one that I've done - but standard lamps are fiddlier than table lamps! The only real snag is that I forgot to replace the fuse in the plug. Do'h!

Video of testing, before the shade was installed.

My primary lamp by my desk quit working the other day and so I thought, "Hey here's an opportunity to do a BB!"  What went wrong is the little knob that acts as the switch to turn the light on and off just started free spinning instead of clicking it on and off.  So I biked to the hardware store and got a new socket to install.  I almost got one with a different style switch on it, then realized that due to this particular lamp's design I in fact needed one with the turning knob.  I like the ones with the little rod you push through better, but that wouldn't work since one needs to be able to access that type from both sides!  Glad I thought about that before buying it.

Here are the photos' though there really is nothing visible that shows the old socket doesn't work.  I included an image with the new and old socket in the shot to support the claim that I really fixed this and didn't just shoot some images of a perfectly fine working lamp.

The fluorescent light in our kitchen ceiling has been out of order for awhile.  When you try to turn it on, it flickers. Here's a video of the problem.
https://youtube.com/shorts/SYcFpfI3yyg]Flickering[/youtube]   Florescent  I couldn't figure out how to embed the video.  What am I missing?  [youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/SYcFpfI3yyg[/youtube]

I was pretty sure the ballast was needing replaced, but my wife suggested that I make sure, rather than just replacing it.  I have never tested a ballast, so I looked it up.  You use a multi-tester and check for continuity between the white input wire and each of the output wires.

The wires red and blue wires looked good. But the yellow wires showed no continuity.  Sorry for the fuzzy picture.

I ordered the ballast from Lowes along with some wire nuts and electrical tape.
After I first installed the new ballast, only one lamp was lighting.  At first I was worried that I had  gotten a bad ballast, especially when continuity testing fail on all the output wires on the new ballast.  But I swapped which of the two red wires were feeding which side of the lamp and got it fully functional.

The switch broke on a Lamp. I could not find a replacement part, so I took parts from two different sockets to fix it.

My wife found a free lamp that she liked, but the socket was broken. I found a socket in my spare parts bin, and I added a lampshade holder.

Here's my try for a 12 V light repair (it's actually a replacement & LED upgrade).

Anyone who has ever had to change a bulb on one of these (Cadillac DTS, although it is not alone in the category) will understand what a pain it is, as it is officially required to remove the front bumper cover & grill to change any of the bulbs in that housing. Changing bulbs isn't what this is about, though.

The right side daytime running light on my car had melted the socket base, and the dealer doesn't sell the housing separately. They will only sell the entire headlight assembly with the HID lamp, HID ballast, DRL, & marker lights as a bundled package, for a small fee of only $900/each...  The left headlight is yellowed and crazed too, but the housing is intact, and even though it would be nice to get two new clear lens headlights, I refuse to pay more for a set of headlights than I would expect to pay for a set of tires!

There are aftermarket headlights to be had, for a few hundred dollars, but the adjusters aren't in the same place as the OEM ones, so they didn't fit well in the space, and they couldn't be adjusted without removing the headlight assembly. I bought a pair, and had to modify the housing to access the adjusters, but I decided to do an LED upgrade to all the incandescent lamps in the housing, so hopefully it would never have a heat-related meltdown like before. That also required an additional load resistor to be installed, so the turn signal wouldn't hyperflash like a fast busy signal.

With the sheet metal mod, the adjusters can be accessed from below while in place, so it's an acceptable solution.

Mike Haasl wrote:This is a badge bit (BB) that is part of the PEP curriculum.  Completing this BB is part of getting the sand badge in Electricity.

In this Badge Bit, you will repair a lamp.

Lamps and their wiring vary greatly, just be safe when pursuing this BB

To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are:
  - repair a lamp
  - this is a true repair, not just replacing a light bulb

To show you've completed this Badge Bit, you must provide:
   - a before picture of the damage that is causing the lamp to not function
   - an after picture of the repaired part
   - an after picture of the lamp illuminated
   - OR post a 2 minute video of you fixing the lamp and it working

This is intended to be for the straw badge level, which requires 5 points from the sand badge list.

For this submission, I also replaced the housing and upgraded the incandescent lamps to LED on the driver's side of the car.
That housing was functioning, but it was very yellowed and crazed with age, so it was on the dim side.