Joseph Meehan wrote:
Julie wrote:

"John Grabowski" wrote


Julie, Did you try replacing the bulbs?

A-ha. Nope! 'Course that was it, and here I was trying to come up
with a circuits-101 final exam question ;-).

There was a blown fuse on the board, so I'd imagine when that blew, it
must have taken 2 of the bulbs with it. Good thing it didn't take all
3, since it clearly would never have occurred to me to try new bulbs!

Thanks.

JSH, feeling rather dim.



More likely one lamp blew and that knocked out the dimmer. As for the
other lamp, maybe it has been out and you did not notice.


"Julie" wrote


I have a lamp I am trying to fix.

It's a 3-pendant floor lamp, and it came with a slider (dimmer) box
between the plug and the light. I heard a "pop" the other day, and
the lights went out. Today I opened up the box, and there was a
circuit board inside. On the board is a slider/resister, a few
other componenets, and (I think) a transformer attached to a heat
sink.

The pendants take 120V bulbs, so I expected I could take out the
dimmer board - cap the wires together (2 #14s), and revert to a
normal lamp. So I did that, and ...

only one of the three pendants lights up. Eh?

Trying to remember assembling the lamp - I'm pretty sure it was
wired straight through - ie, no switches or junctions inside the
fixture, at least that were accessible to me.

Any ideas?

JSH



Yep, the olde "Tungsten arc" which sometimes lasted long enough to take
out a 15 amp fuse before panel breakers became popular, and most every
house used screw base glass fuses.

I installed "touch dimmers" in all our metal bodied table lamps, 'cause
I find it a lot easier to operate them that way than fumbling around for
a switch.

Lost a couple of dimmers when the blbs blew and the tungsten arc current
surge fried them. Went back to the drawing board, looked up the "I
squared t" rating of the triacs in the dimmers and found that a 2 amp
3AG quick blow fuse had a lower rating and would open before the triac
fried.

I stuck fuseholders and 2 amp fuses in all the lamps. Since then I've
had to change a couple of fuses when bulbs blew , but it's a lot easier
and cheaper than replacing the dimmers.

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia

(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"Truth exists; only falsehood has to be invented."