Weird toggle switch

[Robert Green]

Well, I've never seen a bathroom with two doors, either. No, wait, that's not true. Only in college dormitories with shared bathrooms - but that's certainly not a typical residential environment. (-:

It's still most likely to be a bad switch given its location (wet bathroom on the side of the medicine cabinet) and the symptoms the OP described. A switch like that may not be well-sealed and after years of operation with damp fingers crud may have made its way into the switch internals.

I'd be even more certain of a bad switch if the load was more than 25W - the closer the switch is to something hot, the greater the chance for failure. When I used to use 300W photofloods in the studio, the cheaper lamp holder switches would fail with regularity - which is why I think it's a bad switch from what the OP described. Obviously the greater the current, the greater the potential for corrosion and material failure.

I'll bet the "feel" of the switch has changed. Whenever I've had a toggle switch begin to enter a failure mode, the switch feels "sticky" or "mushy" and doesn't have the right "snap" to it.

-- Bobby G.

[HeyBub]

I don't remember the homeowner's name, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Steven Wright.

[trader4]

...

I have a master bathroom with two doors and a 3 way switch. A friend of mine has one with three doors, in his new house. It's not that unusual in newer, larger, homes. 3 way switches in larger bathrooms are even more common.

[Stormin Mormon]

In the OP case, his toggle switch is molded into the medicine chest and miror. I'd think those three ways would be on the wall.

[Red Green]

DerbyDad03 wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Was meant for OP to "Lemme go look and see if it has ON/OFF markings." No sense starting a 3-way hunt if it has them.

[DerbyDad03]

...

re: "Well, I've never seen a bathroom with two doors, either. No, wait, that's not true. Only in college dormitories with shared bathrooms - but that's certainly not a typical residential environment."

They are not all that uncommon.

Here are just a couple of the plans found via a Google search:

[Jim Elbrecht]

Pretty common actually in the big old barns of houses built in the early 20th century in NY. And even more common in the older houses that converted 'walk-in hall closets' to bathrooms.

Jim

[aemeijers]

>

Dirt-common late 60s to at least late 70s, for the kid bedroom wing. Hall door, and a door to the BR on each side. The lower-on-the-food-chain kids actually had to walk across the hall to go pee.

Given the obvious problems with kids of opposite genders once puberty hits, the practice may have died out, and they only do hall doors now.

[krw]

>>

No, "Jack-n-Jill" bathrooms (shared bathroom between bedrooms) are quite common now.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I have, in a bathroom with 2 doors and a switch by each door.

[snip]

[Bob Villa]

Most anode are attached to the top off the tube...if turned USD the wire would be more than enough!

[Bob Villa]

Now we're stealing from "Galaxy Quest" satirizing "Star Trek"!

[chaniarts]

it's simply amazing the number of internet people who were there looking over my shoulder saying that i didn't do what i actually did some 20 years ago.

there was (just) enough slack in all the wires to do this. i must have 25 of these terminals on racks down the hall, if any of you experts would like to come see how to do this.

[DerbyDad03]

You didn't do it!

Even if you showed us how you did it by doing it again on the exact same model monitor, you still didn't do it.

We've made up our minds - don't try to convince us by using facts, details or even live demonstrations.

So there.

[clare]

The problem with that is if the youke mofes forward or backwards at all while rotating, the whole calibration goes off and it is not a really simple matter to get everything back in focus. In those steel-cased monitors, flipping the whole CRT was dead simple.

One I remember it was a case of loosening a big worm clamp (like a rad hose clamp) pulling the tube back, flipping it and retightening the clamp. Including removing and replacing the case, about 3 minutes worth of work.

[DerbyDad03]

The "worst" thing we ever did was this:

Way back when, I was installing hundreds of TRS-80 units for my company. It was my Department Head's turn to get one - a guy about 4 levels above me. He had been waiting a long time for his machine and we had arranged our schedules so he could be there when I set it up for him.

After testing each unit in the shop, we put them back in big box they came in and basically unpacked them in front of the "customer".

We happened to have a unit in the shop that had fallen off of the workbench and was all smashed up. My boss had me take that unit, pull some wires out so they stuck out of the case, apply some duct tape to some of the cracks, and make the unit look as beat up as possible. The monitor was cracked and the frame was bent, so it wasn't that hard to make it look pretty bad.

We then packed it into a new box and I brought it to my DH's office, with my boss waiting in the hallway. The DH had cleared a spot on his desk and was clearly excited about getting his first "computer". I opened the box in the DH's office, removed the top piece of packing foam and exclaimed "Holy Sh*t! What happen to this machine!" My partner and I reached into the box, lifted it out and put it on the DH's desk.

The DH took one look at the unit and almost crapped his pants. He was pissed!

That's when my boss came in through the door laughing so hard he could hardly talk.

The DH finally got the joke and we all had a good laugh.

That's when we brought in the good machine from out in the hallway.