Lighting the lamp

[rolanni]

I dragged the lamp out from its place by the sofa last night and by means savory and un- have caused it to work again. It now has four twisty bulbs in place -- two daylight, two bright white, 'cause that's what was under the counter in the kitchen (Note to Self: Add light bulbs to grocery list), and lo! the living room is readable once more.

Now, the DVD player doesn't work.

No lie; I'm putting out the amps this week, seems like.

Answering the multiple queries of, "But! What do the lamps stop doing?": They stop making light, a function I consider of utmost, if not primary, importance in a lamp.

Now, the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory is located in the House That The Contractor Built -- by which I mean, the former owner was a contractor, and whatever material happened to be "left over" from a paying gig came home and was incorporated into the house he was building for his family. Which is why, until we had them replaced, none of the windows in the house matched any of the other windows in the house. The wiring is likewise, um, idiosyncratic. Not that it isn't to code, but the switches work in Mysterious Ways and things that you would think were no way on the same circuit? Are.

We are also located. . .in the country, where the power has the charming tendency to flicker on and off in, oh, a high wind, or during a rainstorm, or, yanno, because it's too sunny.

What I'm saying here is that power surges are not unlikely and are possibly the doing-in of the other lamps that have died the Real Death in this location. Before we moved here, I had lamps that lasted for years, needing nothing more than a bulb replaced now and again.

Someone had suggested putting the lamps on a power-bar, which seems overkill, but, in light of the lamp body-count -- maybe not.

Many thanks for the links to the Ott lamps, which look lovely -- and which I hope I won't be needing for. . .a while.

Comments

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

Here's something I suggest to help. Staples (and no doubt other places) sells these surge protectors with battery backups. They have helped here tremendously (with the same flickery power problems). When the power goes out, they give up to an hour of power to keep things going. That has helped not only with my desktop, but also for the other things I use it for. It means that if the power stays out for longer than a flicker, I'm covered. That's particularly important in my front room, because I depend on lamps, because this is a very old house and there really aren't wall/ceiling fixtures.

I so sympathize on the wiring. We remodeled the kitchen a couple of years ago and in the process had to replace the breakerbox. That's when we found out how remarkably the house had been wired and how interestingly the circuits were set up.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

Someone had suggested putting the lamps on a power-bar, which seems overkill, but, in light of the lamp body-count -- maybe not.

We got into the habit of putting anything electric or electronic that we liked or wanted to keep onto a surge-spike protector while Himself was stationed in Panamá, where the power was also wonky as hell. (We lost a television set that way before we learned better. Before then, we just had the computer -- the 48K Atari 800 of blessed memory -- on a protected outlet.)

[aldersprig.livejournal.com]

After losing 2 alarm clocks in as many weeks to power surges (and you can never find the same one when you go back), we've kept our alarm clock and pretty much everything else in the house on surge protectors. Including the toaster.

and there was light...

[(Anonymous)]

Congrats!

Old homes are quite the adventure aren't they? My Mum's home was like that. I'd like to second the power strip suggestion, though the UPS sounds good too but may be overkill. At the bookstore, I couldn't afford an UPS but I power down everything I can except the security system before leaving for the night.

Hope you're feeling better
Lauretta@ConstellationBooks

What lamps do

[od-mind.livejournal.com]

Speaking as one of the earlier questioners, I beg to quibble. Lamps don't make light; that's what bulbs do. Lamps provide power to bulbs and point them in useful directions. And pose.

To recommend a fix, it's useful to know where the system keeps failing. From the DVD comment (and the lamp's resurrection), it sounds like you don't have a lamp problem at all -- you have a power problem (as others have noted). Different animal entirely.

Re: What lamps do

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Actually the DVD comment is misleading. The DVD works fine, if one is willing to use the controls on the front of the box. What appears to have failed is the sensor that picks up the beam from the remote control. Not a remote control problem, because the same wand turns the television on and off, and that works just as it ought.

Re: What lamps do

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Oh... you may have to tell the DVD and/or remote about each other? We have a remote that has a sequence to set it to talk to various pieces of equipment, and there are conditions that leave one or the other confused about it. I get to introduce them again, and always have to dig out the manual to figure it out.

Re: What lamps do

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

If you haven't tried fresh batteries, I recommend doing so. When the batteries in my universal remote get too low on power it sends signals that work for some things but not for others.

Lamp/Light burn out

[(Anonymous)]

Sometimes Power Companies have/offer whole house surge protector at a nominal charge.

jtk

Power Bar

[(Anonymous)]

Nononononono. A surge protector, not a vanilla power bar. Like what your computer is plugged into. Right? Um, right?

Re: Power Bar

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

My computer is plugged into the biggest, baddest UPS I could afford.

But yes, for the lamp -- a surge protector. Got it.

Re: Power Bar

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

I suspect the confusion comes from many of the current crop of "power bars" having built-in surge protectors. But, yes, there's the simple "distribute the power" octopoid outgrowths of old-fashioned extension cords, the "stop the surge" additions, and the "keep the power going" UPS. Given the wonky power, at least some surge protection sounds like a worthwhile step.

[redpimpernel.livejournal.com]

Just had to chime in with 2 bits.
Never ever EVER daisy chain surge protectors. If you plug one surge protector into another surge protector, (technical jargon about square waves deleted) they cancel each other out and you end up with no surge protection.

The five year old (newly constructed) McMansion where I farm/dog/horse sit, which sits a half-mile from the road, has some of the dirtiest power. They trashed electronics for over a year before they believed me about getting surge protectors for everything. So it's not always the age of the wiring, but can be a function of the distance from the main power lines.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I have both my lounge systems and the upstairs computer room (OK, front bedroom, but it's where most of the computers reside), plus the network infrastructure (ADSL/cable router, switches) on two UPS systems (APC 1500VA units), one in each place. However, a few weeks ago some sort of power glitch managed to take both of them offline at the same time, to the point where they wouldn't restart until I disconnected the mains input for around 30 seconds. Fortunately then they powered up again, but it's the reason I always have spares of UPSs.

(And at work we had an email that the "uninterruptable power supply" had been, er, interrupted!)

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

Our Santa Cruz house had wiring like that. The strangest things were on the same circuit. Then, there was only one wall switch that didn't work anything we could figure out.

Here, in Silly Valley, we have a number of outside lights for which we can find no control, and some of them work, but others don't, and we don't know why. *Some* of the wiring is grounded and to code, but not all of it is, and there is really no clear mapping of what is and is not grounded. Lovely.

And every room has a different kind of light bulb needed.