The Halogen Lamp Lighter

This is the true story of two halogen lights. It takes place over one year.

Background

Yesterday I noticed a floor-lamp in the dumpster. Inspection revealed that the heavy metal base, pole and shade were in good condition. No scratch marks, a few scuff marks that a quick wipe-down would fix. Amazingly the halogen pencil-lamp was in place. The rotary switch was missing its knob. I reclaimed the whole she-bang.

On the way in the superintendent expressed surprise. It seems that the lamp had been purchased only this week, the knob had failed, and the owner was on their way to the store to buy a replacement lamp. A complete lamp – stand, light fittings and all. Here in Toronto consumers are trained by the city to “take it to the kerb”, rather than “see if it can be repaired”.

Basics

First off, it’s “A Second Use For Everything”, it’s not “Never throw anything away”, so there is always a chance that there is something very wrong with an item reclaimed from the dumpster. In this case, before I had it upstairs, the superintendent had confirmed my belief that it was only the switch, and possibly the light element that needed replacing.

I armed myself with nothing more than a power-point and a pair of safety-glasses (in case something pops, fizzes, or sends shards of who-knows-what my way). In testing electrical stuff I don a pair of washing-up gloves, dry, made of rubber.

Plugged it in, it lit up. Waddyaknow? The light element works, only the rotary knob was defunct.

Not really. A pair of rubber-handled pliers told me that the switch was functioning well. Just the knob had, presumably, cracked or stripped a thread.

A new push-switch is $7.00 at the local hardware store.

It is the work of ten minutes to unscrew the pole at the joint near the switch, drag the switch out, replace the switch, push the entrails back in and (glasses, gloves etc) re-test the unit.

Works perfectly.

You’d think by now I’d be crowing at obtaining a second lamp for almost-free. (I did a green standard lamp a year ago). Not so.

The “broken” rotary switch still works; I’ll hunt down a suitable knob and have a working switch ready in time for the next lamp!

Works perfectly.

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