Mad Scientists Light

Step 5:

Another shot of the guts of this lamp.

The most expensive part of this whole project was the standard Dimmer wall switch (push in to turn on and off, rotate to dim or brighten) (the black box on the left) which ran me about $7 at the Home supply store.

There are three wires running out of the back of the dimmer switch unit, two black and one green, the green wire is for grounding, and since the box is wood and since i didn't use a three prong grounded electrical cord i just removed the green wire.

*Okay i've revised this a bit and made a much simpler and effective way to wire up the sockets, i could have sworn i wired it up one way and not another, but i completed this project a few months ago and just did the write up now, so i forgot about that change in plans sorry for the confusion*

... take all the black wires coming out of the sockets and bunch them together, i used wire ties to keep them all together, do the same with the white wires coming from the sockets use a wire nut to connect all the white wires together and have them connect to one of the wires from the power cord...

connect all the black wires from the sockets together as well and wire nut them together with one of the 2 black wires coming from the dimmer switch... then connect the remaining black wire from the dimmer switch to the other wire on the power cord

Comments

[Cabanaman]

Problem. When I went shopping for the materials for this Instructable Walmart (suprisingly) didnt have any light sockets, instead I got one of these, thinking it was the same principle. But I encountered a problem, the dimmer is breaking the continuity of the circuit. The lights turn on fine with connected directly with the mains but when wired with the dimmer it just refuses to work. Any ideas?

[Goodhart]

it wouldn't happen to be a push on, push off dimmer, would it ? :-) Some dimmers also include "on / off" by pushing the dimmer in, and the dimmer then works by twisting the knob.

[Cabanaman]

lol No. Its just a turn dimmer. No pushing required.

[Goodhart]

do you know if it uses a triac for regulation ?

[Cabanaman]

You got me there.

[Goodhart]

The better dimmer switches use a triac circuit to prevent "ringing" in the bulbs. A much cheaper version is little more than a rheostat. The one thing about the rheostat, you wouldn't be able to "hook it up incorrectly" whereas the more complicated one may need everything just so, as it were.

[Cabanaman]

I'm thinking the dimmer is the problem. Could it be that my bulbs are plugged into wall outlet light sockets?

[Goodhart]

Well, if those are then plugged directly into the mains, you are bypassing the circuit of the box. If you have sockets set up for those to plug into inside your circuit, and they are wired correctly, it should work. I just thought of something else that might be a problem: you have the dimmer on the "hot" side of the line, correct ? With the bulbs, switching the polarity wouldn't matter, but the dimmer may not work on the wrong side.

[Cabanaman]

I made a rough diagram of the wiring of the light. I just can't see the problem other than a defective dimmer switch. 200 hours in MSPaint.

[Cabanaman]

Oh yeah, whoops. lol

[Goodhart]

Yeah, looks like you could be right. Either the dimmer is bad, or it requires something (another ground, etc) that is not shown. Sorry for the trip down a blind alley of hope :-(

[viacin]

step 1: find your wal-mart reciept step 2: throw the dimmer fixture at the customer service rep, and stuff your reciept down his pants. step 3: bond out of jail step 4 : go to Home Depot and buy EVERYTHING you need at one place :D step 5: you could also simply attach one wire to the side of the bulb, and one to the bottom... same difference.

[Two Raven]

Bit confused here. In process of creating my own light and have the sockets and the dimmer switch....how is this plugging into the wall socket? Have a feeling I'm missing a crucial part - help! (this is my first time working with electrical stuff, so any advice is appreciated)

[tim-1138]

you have to make sure you put an electrical plug on the end to plug the finished creation into the wall... the cheapest way to do it is buy an extenshion cord and cut off the female end, wire the cut off end into the lamp and keep the male plug end the way it is and plug it right into the wall...

[Demon Sun]

Remember Black is hot, and White is neutral, don't mix em up