Rewiring an Anglepoise lamp

Just rebuilt a mid-'60s bog-standard Anglepoise lamp as it was getting floppy, mucky and the flex was intermittent in function! (i.e. bloody near nackered). Flex was flat-three, with the earth connected to the bottom of the first, central, arm and the remaing two fed through the arms. This meant, of course, that there was only one layer of insulation between conductor and sharpish metal and that the earth went through three sets of joints.

I'm wondering what to use now. Even 0.5mm miniature mains flex might be too big to get through the grommets (and could be a right abstrad to feed through) and I haven't been able to find any flat-three. With 3-core flex, the earth would have to be brought out at the top, but that's no bad thing and no worse than being at the bottom.

Reply to
PeterC
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Fit a 12V lamp into a BC adapter in the lampholder and use an external transformer so the Anglepoise is only running low voltage.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

Mine is wired with a round plastic covered three core flex. I have a brass/(or brass plated) bulb holder with an earth terminal. My main problem is that it gets to hot to turn off.

Reply to
Michael Chare

Certainly avoids 240V on the lamp, but portability...

Also, I'm 'tuning' it to take a CFL.

Reply to
PeterC

My lamp-holder is Bakelite, but I'll use a CFL in it.

I'll see if I can find some miniature mains flex, pref. black, to use.

Reply to
PeterC

If by tuning you mean adjusting the counterbalance springs then fair enough. Without such adjustment, a CFL will be far too heavy and the lamp end will droop.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Minchin

I'm not that old - yet! ;-)

Reply to
PeterC

Err, I'm sat looking at an Anglepoise lamp which has a 5W CFL in it. No adjustment to the springs required.

Reply to
Huge

Surprised to read that Hugh. Anglepoise lamps I have seem to be so critically balanced that a tap on the lamp shade will set it moving. The springs give a fairly well damped oscillation and it soon comes to rest at the original position.

I assume that a 5w CFL will be quite a bit heavier than a 'proper' bulb and hence my comment. What happens to your lamp if you take the bulb out? Mine shoot skywards.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Minchin

The Ring 5W CFL in there weighs 35gm (on my electronic kitchen scales, which only resolve to 5gm) and an Osram 40W GLS bulb weighs 30gm.

It's a genuine (although probably at least 25 years old and slightly battered after several house moves) Anglepoise with (non-adjustable) springs. I'm sure my Dad had one with adjustable springs, although Gawd knows where that went.

Reply to
Huge

If you cant find anything to fit, perhaps you could take out the old flex, locate the failure point (by wiggling it with multimeter clipped on) and shorten it. Then to clean it up run the flex thru the dishwasher, give it a week to dry and refit old flex good as new.

NT

Reply to
NT

I'll be using an 11W CFL (no way of accurately weighing it, 2 oz. on an old spring balance). That's OK in the big 'commercial' job on my desk but would need care in an AP.

Mine's from 1968 and is the 'deluxe' version; the cheaper one didn't have adjustable springs.

2 of the pivot points have washers - I assume fibre (very small and I'm not risking them by over-enthusiastic inspection) in that are for adjusting friction. I tightened mine after nearly being hit by the rapidly ascending shade.
Reply to
PeterC

The break was too far from an end :-(

I'm the dishwasher and I have my limits!

Just been to B&Q but nowt there. I can feel a bodgification coming on.

Reply to
PeterC

There's probably somewhere that sells such stuff for =A31 a metre, there are niche flexes out there. But where to suggest I really don't know.

NT

Reply to
NT

Very interesting Hugh. I'd have thought that the transformer in the CFL would add much more weight. maybe with a low power inverter, a small ferrite suffices. I don't have a 5w cfl to hand but the lowest power one I do have is 15w and that weighs 130gm.

As an aside, I just switched on the light in the cupboards where the spare lamps are kept and it pinged so had to fit a new one!!

Bob

Reply to
Bob Minchin

No, I haven't yet found anywhere. B&Q wanted about 6 quid for 5m of 0.5 (that doesn't fit) - not too bad, but I need 3m and the remaining 2m would be of no use as I have about 20m of white anyway.

Reply to
PeterC

Any of these any good (look down the list there are some slim ones)?

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Reply to
Bolted

The first might be OK - I'd have to e-mail for the OD.

The second has some that are possibilities - certainly thinner than the 6mm of the stuff I've got.

One problem is that the holes in the arms of the AP are rectangular with rounded ends (flat elipse?), so eliptical or flat-twin is necessary to allow the grommet to be deformed to fit the hole. Widening the hole would solve the problem - by causing the arm to break or bend!

Reply to
PeterC

Not if you do the earthing like the original - the remaining twisted pair fit the slot:-

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Reply to
Geo

flat-3 rather than 3-core that's the challenge, as I don't want to break out the earth from sheathed flex.

Reply to
PeterC

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