RonB wrote:
About five years ago I built a curio cabinet for my wife with two
internal puck lamps. The lamps are controlled by a small, round, dome
shaped touch switch on the back of the cabinet. The switch adjusts
from low, medium to high intensity with gentle touch. During the past
week or so I have noticed the lamps are turned onto the low intensity
without the switch being touched. We have experienced at least one
brief power interruption during this period.

Has anyone had experience with these types of switches doing this? I
am assuming there are no safety concerns.

RonB

Apologies if I repeat myself but last fall one of the metal bodied end
table lamps I'd installed a touch swich in maybe ten years ago began to
turn off (from its highest intensity) without my touching it.

I noticed a couple of Box Elder bugs had made it inside the house again
and were occasionally seen near that lamp.

I couldn't believe that a bug that small had enough body capacitance to
trip the touch dimmer if it landed on the lamp body. And, I finally saw
one land there without affecting the dimmer.

I finally cought one of those damn bugs affecting the dimmer. It was
crawling up the brass bulb socket shell and when it reached the top one
of its front feet touched the top of the lamp bulb's screw base which
was just barely visible at the top of the socket shell.

So, what was happening was that the bug was creating a resistive path
between the metal lamp body and one side of the ac line. (Which side of
the line depended on which way the non polarized line cord was plugged
into the wall outlet.) And that was more than enough to trip the dimmer.

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10e12 furlongs per fortnight.