Ikea lamp / sh*te design verging on fire risk ?

[Colin Wilson]

Has anyone ever seen a Lillholmen ceiling lamp before ?

SWMBO wanted one, and I just took it apart to have a look (having had it sat on the table for over a week now...)

It's marked as double insulated, with a rubber base that "insulates" (or perhaps just stops from scratching) a ceramic base from the ceiling (?!?), it's supposed to come with heat-proof sleeving - which in this case was two pieces 25mm and 30mm long.

Perhaps i'm being a little picky, but I would have expected at least

75mm each given that you have to connect with the ceramic dangling, then screw through the rubber base into the ceiling.

Of most concern to me was the connection to the lampholder itself.

It consists of a ceramic edision screw lump, held in place by a metal strap to the main part of the ceramic base, but the connections themselves appear to be no more substantial than a push-fit.

There's no way to properly tighten a connection, and no way to remove a connection once made by the looks of it.

The actual connections are seemingly to any of the 4 holes either side of the strap in the image below.

Anyone else think it looks like a fire waiting to happen ?

(120k)

Incidentally, aren't ES lamps usually live to the centre connection, neutral to the screw thread ? (this has no markings as you can see)

[Adam Aglionby]

Push fit connections are very common inside fluorescent light fittings, usually with solid core cable, the grip is tenacious.

Dont see a problem as long as the lamp holder itself isnt supended soley by the conducting cores.

Adam

[Colin Wilson]

Funnily enough, their own instructions show stranded

[Arfa Daily]

"Colin Wilson" wrote in message news: [e-mail]...

Ikea are a mega company, and I would be most surprised if they were to sell anything which represented any kind of electrical or fire risk. Presumably, the packaging or the lamp itself carries the appropriate approvals? If so, then I guess you've got to accept that it has been properly tested for electrical and fire safety, and that the testing house were happy that it met the relevant standards.

I've come across quite a few things that employ those snatch connectors - the trigger switch in my good old faithful B&D drill for instance - and as you say, they do grip tenaciously to both stranded and solid wire cores.

As far as the lengths of heat-resistant sleeving go, they do seem a little 'penny-pinching', but they are only intended to shield the wire insulation from radiated heat, so I guess that they must be considered adequate for that purpose.

Arfa

[Mike Clarke]

I don't know if there's a specific rule, it always seemed to be good practice for older designs of ES lampholders but I'm not sure it applies for the newer ones.

The contact for the cap in older designs formed a substantial part of the threades section and was very easy to touch. Current designs all appear to use just a small contact for the cap at the very bottom of the socket so the cap doesn't become live until screwed almost fully home. Looking at one I have here, the cap contact is much less exposed than the centre contact so might even be safer wired as the live connector - I think some of the instruction sheets I've seen even imply that too.

[Andy Dingley]

Stranded shouldn't use push-fit, but it can use something that looks awfully like a push-fit, except that it's held open during assembly by a tiny spike in the assembly jig.

The risk is that future repairs either don't use this spike and simply push (short contact length) or use too big a spike and strain the contact spring (low contact pressure), either of which can lead to a high resistance contact and heating.

[js.b1]

You can get push-in terminal blocks with levers...

- Wago 222-412/413/415

- 32A rating

- Stranded min CSA 0.08mm, max 4.00mm

- Solid max CSA 2.50mm

Ok, not quite push-in since they use a lever. However they seem quite well designed.

"Ideal" and others do push-in ones for lighting.