"Lars" wrote in message
...
My electrical theory is fair but not great. Can someone
please
advise me.

I have an old Anglepoise lamp with painted metal arms and
painted
metal lampshade (Anglepoise model 90). It has a two-core
mains
lead. I am in the UK so this is all at 230-240 volts.

Today I touched the outside of the lampshade and got a sort
of vey
mild tingle feeling which felt "odd". When I used a mains
tester
screwdriver on the exposed metal (at the joint of the
lampshade
and support arm) then it glowed as if the metal of the
Anglepoise
lamp was live.

I unplugged the lamp and tested the resistence between the
live
pin on the mains plug and some exposed metal on the lamp. I
got
no resistence reading at all (i.e. it must have been a very
high
resistence). I then tested the neutral pin in the same way
and
got the same high resistence result.

So the lamp seems ok. But something seems to be wrong!

QUESTION: Is my lamp safe to use and could I get a shock
from it
in its present condition?

QUESTION: If my lamp is unsafe then is there a repair I can
do?

Thank you for any info.
Lars


Its not safe... how good your meter is and how good you are
using are open to question..but the tingle is proof positive
you have some degree of short or current leak in the lamp
wiring to the lamp base metal. Rewire it.


Phil Scott




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PS: Picture of Anglepoise model 90:
http://www.anglepoise.com/timeline/model_90.jpg