DC lamp short

[genecurp]

My 3295RK 2006 has a lamp over the desk in the rear. the lamp is DC using two type 1076 bulbs. The lamp went out.

Funny it blinked a little when i touched the metal lamp shade bracket to the lamp metal attachment point.

I bought new bulbs and installed one. No good. Then the other DC lights went out.

I re-checked the fuses and this time one was burning. I replaced the fuse and it blew. So i removed the new bulb from the lamp and risked another fuse. The fuse survived, and my DC lights are back except for, of course, the desk lamp.

So do I first pull the fuse again, disassemble the lamp and look for loose fittings and connections? (It is becoming obvious that I know not what I do).

Or should I go to the repair man route?

gene

[HamRad]

Gene,

It is easy enough to do yourself with this sort of thing. Probably just a loose connection somewhere in the circuit. Just start tracing it down. Each connection is a possible problem. I remember someone reporting that when they finally found the problem it was a screw through the wire!

You are already on the right road. Just keep going. You'll find the problem. Of course it could even be a bad lamp.

HamRad

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

EDIT: Al sweetly pointed out to me this AM that I misread the original question, for that I apologize, I will leave my comments on a fix he did to our lamp, for the problem we had, it worked anyway. As far as a short, nope, we did not have one of those, we did not pop any breakers, etc. SORRY.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Original post:

Been there, had that. In our case it was the contacts INSIDE the lamp fixture.

Al would put new bulb in, but the contacts in the fixture were not making good contact (imagine that, contacts trying to make contact! )

SOOO, he took the fixture loose from the wall, so he could maneuver it better. Once loose, he tilted it a bit, and used one of my smaller crochet hooks to get down in there (yaaa, power off, etc etc) and was able to use the hook to pull the contacts into proper positions.

Put er all back together, no more flickering.

Sounds easy, but was accomplished with some spicy words.

[snfexpress]

Gene,

Here is what I would do. First things first - get yourself an inexpensive multimeter, like this one: from Radio Shack for a couple of sawbucks.

Then, once you get your new toy home (and you have batteries for it), take your wedding ring off, if you wear one (if you have objections to removing your ring, then wrap it with masking tape). You may ask why? Glad you asked - while we're just dealing with 12 volts, the amperage (the amount of current) drawn can be VERY high, especially when you have a direct short. With household current (110v AC), if you touch a "hot" wire, you'll get a tingling sensation (or more if you have not been in the habit of touching them all of your life). This tingling sensation will cause you to drop the wire. With 12 volts, you don't get this sensation, but you can get arcing which is just like welding - you don't want your wedding ring or any other jewelry to act as the "short" of your welder and remove a finger!

And, while we're talking about fingers, when you touch the wire ends to the black and red probes, respectively, don't pinch them with your finger and thumb - the moisture in your fingers and the saline solution in your body *can* produce a "short" such that the meter will recognize it.

Okay, now that disclaimers have been made, the next step is to remove the fuse for that particular circuit. We don't want power going through these two wires to your lamp. At least not while we are looking for the short.

Set your new multimeter to "Ohms" or "Resistance". Touch both the red and black leads from the multimeter together and notice what the readout shows and if the meter "beeps". Now that you know what to look and listen for when you find a short, remove the lamp from the wall and then remove the wire nuts from the main wiring where it connects to the lamp wiring (take note of what wire goes where). Use the black and red leads from the multimeter and touch the black lead to one of the wires coming from the 5er and the red lead to the other wire coming from the 5er. Do you get a "beep" or a reading indicating a short? In all likelihood, you probably won't as I suspect the problem is in the lamp - just a hunch.

Okay, with bulbs in the lamp, connect the black and red leads to the lamp wires and rotate the switch. If you get a "beep", then no "beep", then a "beep", your lamp is okay. If you get a continuous open short reading, then your lamp is at fault. To verify, remove the bulbs and test again. The bulbs actually help to make a short when the switch is in the "on" position.

If it's the lamp, you could try looking at it and seeing if there is something obviously wrong. Or, get a new lamp; or, take it to an electrician.

If you did get a short reading with the 5er wires, it's probably time to take it to a dealer or have a repairman come out, based on your skill level. You could continue to track the wire pair back thru each junction to the panel, but this could be a big job.

Hope this helps.

[genecurp]

Here is the outcome. I did have a service tech come over. He found the contacts in the bottom of one bulb's base were touching and causing the short. (Like I understand Mrs Countryguy to have said their problem was).

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

Glad ya got er fixed.