Lamp far from socket plug

Sep 03, 2008 22 Replies

I have chairs and table in the middle of my living room. I want to put a lamp on the table, but dont want a wire running across the carpet to the nearest socket (and don't want to tear up the carpet either). Is there a way to somehow plug in a lamp by remote wiring?


MIT is working on it right now. If you have enough patience, it may be available during your lifetime

Sure, the boys at my alma mater can show you how to do it:

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If you can't wait, then get a battery powered lamp.

Jeff

or, if that link doesn't work, try:

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I think that Intel recently announced some breakthrough with wireless electricity.

No

You could consider a lamp that has a chain you mount to the ceiling.

If they get good at it to quickly, we're done... and what about all those folks with the tin foil hats for emf protection, they're done too

On Wed 03 Sep 2008 01:45:14p, Senin told us...

No. There is no such thing as "remote wiring", at least not for standard house current. Why would you think so?

If you have a basement or crawl space under your living room, your best and safest solutiion is to install a floor socket that is specifically made for this type of situation.

One of the homes we built was on concrete slab. Since installing these after the fact would not have been easy, we pre-planned several locations where floor outlets were installed. We were never sorry we did it.

What's under the floor? If you have a basement with an open ceiling under there, just drill a small hole (it won't show in the carpet), cut off the plug end of the cord and then thread the lamp cord down through the hole. In the basement install a new plug on the end of the cord and plug it into an outlet - preferably one with GFCI protection.

There's no easy or inexpensive way to transmit power wirelessly and battery-operated lamps would be a nuisance since you would likely have to recharge their batteries every day if you wanted a lamp with enough light output to light up the table/chair area.

TKM

Yes, you need a Tesla adapter.

Yeah, and if that lamp cord frays and sets the carpet on fire, insurance company will laugh, since running zip cord through structure like that is not up to code. IOW, not a good idea. If you are putting a hole in the floor anyway, just cut a hole for a regular code-rated floor outlet, properly wired up in basement ceiling. Or to stay with the simple hole idea, use a surface-mount floor box. (Basically looks like a fancy outdoor-rated surface box.) It'll be a bit of a toe-stubber under the table, but could easily be reversed after OP or next owner changes the layout. Plug the hole in the floor with a dowel, and sew the slit in the carpet shut.

A previous poster had it right- traditional way to handle this would be a retro hanging lamp, with decorative hooks in ceiling trailing the cord over to a wall outlet, and an inline switch at a reachable height if no switched outlet was available. Wind the cord through the biggest gaudiest chain you can find, and make it an in-your-face decor statement. Hell, they used to hang chandeliers on hemp ropes, from pulleys. Or maybe surface-mount a yuppie track light on the ceiling, and wiremold the power up to it.

-- aem sends...

I figure that I'll go into the business of selling cancer treatments. With all of that energy floating around the room, it's bound to have some bad side effects.

I know some of the people here will scream, but if is not a heavy traffic area, get a fish tape and run this under your carpet. I have done it and it works fine:

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On 9/4/2008 8:20 AM Kuskokwim spake thus:

I'm not going to scream, only say "don't do it".

I have no doubt that this has worked fine for you, but think about it: do you *really* want to put a run of cable made for speakers--*speakers*--under your carpet and run 120 volt power through it?

I wouldn't.

At the very least, if there was a fire, god forbid, on account of this cable, and the fire inspector discovered it as the ignition source, I think your insurance company wouldn't be very happy about that.

Ok, thanks for the responses. Looks like I learned one thing out of this. There is no way to do this. Saves me time and effort looking through the internet.

By the way, concrete is under the floor.

Ok, thanks for the responses. Looks like I learned one thing out of this. There is no way to do this. Saves me time and effort looking through the internet.

By the way, concrete is under the floor.

Google "flat extension cord"

It's a wire running over your carpet, but if you really need a lamp...

1 - Buy one of these:
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2 - Plug it in to the nearest receptacle and leave it there for about 10 minutes. 3 - Quickly - very quickly - unplug the plug from the receptacle and plug it into one of the sockets at the other end of the cord. This will trap the electricity inside the cord, creating kind of a "current loop". 4 - Take the cord over to the lamp and plug your lamp into one of the unused sockets. This should power your lamp for a while, although you may have to recharge the cord every now and then.

Note: If this doesn't work, it's probably because you weren't quick enough when performing Step 3. Keep trying until you get it right.

Check with a restaurant supply company. They have some battery powered table lamps that have output equal to about a 100w lamp. Not cheap!

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