I have a table lamp which lights, changes brightness & goes off in response to touching it.
Perfect for where it's used, but it's pink! The base seems to be some kind of pottery. If I paint it with emulsion - will it still work?
Touch lamp
Dec 09, 2016
20 Replies
My mother had one by her bed. Got it in Aldi IIRC. Much easier than groping in the dark for a switch. As to whether painting it will stop it working, I've no idea, but you could try a postage-sized patch round the back as an experiment, or even touch it with your hand in a poly-bag or rubber glove, to see if conductivity is important, or whether it's a capacitance effect.
just switch it on and off with 100w of RF ..........
In message , Chris Hogg writes
I understood it is capacitance.
>
Wot dat?
Someone for sure will suggest an Arduino, a load of optical interfaces, power supply and leads ... about 10x the price of the lamp and ugly as sin .... to do the same thing.
Black magic. Or in your case pink magic.
Sigh. No Google on your planet?
formatting link
Capacitance is the ability of a body to store electric charge.
When you rub your feet on a nylon carpet, your body becomes a capacitor and stores an electric charge.
When you touch the ear of the boy sitting next to you, a spark jumps across to his ear and gives him a static electric shock. This is your body discharging.
At least that's how it worked in French lessons in school. (The French classroom was the only one with carpet.)
Owain
Yes, paint will make no difference.
And I thought you were going to say 'the French teacher was the only one with nylon knickers'
Your body always was a capacitor. Your rubbing action charges it up.
Would I be rubbing my feet on the French teacher's directoires?
Owain
I dunno. Would you?
Which bit?
Are you saying it has no metallic outer pieces? Brian
Also if you have a cat, then these things tend to be an issue as climbing cats tend to operate them just as well as we do. Brian
Absolutement non.
Owain
It doesn't.
According to 1 Corinthians 6:19, your body is a Temple - so suggesting it's also a capacitor might start an unholy row.
An induction into a new line of argument I see.
NT
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