Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Brass Table Lamp Pull Chain Cluster Repair

A customer brought in this patient the other day and complained the bulbs were flickering and not working well. This lamp has a cluster with two pull chain sockets and the complaint was coming from both sockets. According to the lamp part index, this lamp is called a early electric style lamp.


Upon a brief inspection there is visible damage and wear in the socket interior.


The lamp parts needed to repair this lamp include two pull chain sockets (shells, interiors, and insulators), lead wires to connect the sockets to the cluster, and a snap on polarized plug.



First the heat caps and cluster caps are removed from the lamp.


The wire nuts are removed and the sockets are opened.



The sockets are removed from the socket cluster.


The lead wires are attached to the new socket interiors (black wire to the brass screw and white wire to the silver screw). The wires are pushed up and into the cluster. The socket shells are clipped into the socket caps.





The lead wires are trimmed so they will easily tuck in the cluster body. The wires are stripped and connected to the plug wire in the lamp. The white wires connects to the ribbed plug wire and the black wires connect to the smooth plug wire. The wire nuts are tucked in the cluster.




The customer wanted the original pull chains on the new sockets so the chains are clipped from the old sockets and attached to the new sockets with a brass chain connector.




Finally the plug on this lamp was a quick attach plug, but is was not polarized (both prongs are the same size). The old plug is replaced with a new plug that is polarized.


To install the new plug a small section of the plug is cut off, the new plug shell is placed on the cord, and the prongs of the plug are spread. The cord is placed in the new plug with the ribbed wire connecting to the small brass prong and the ribbed wire connecting to the broad silver screw. Using a pair of pliers the plug is squeezed in the plug body.





This lamp is now safe and complete.


Perfect. Total Cost < $ Total Time < 30 minutes

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