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Desk Lamps Keep Failing at Same Outlet

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  • Desk Lamps Keep Failing at Same Outlet

    Hello, I'm a first time poster with a minor question (I hope I'm in the right place). I have had two bedside LED lamps in the last 2 months that have stopped working that were plugged into the same extension cord, and I was wondering if anyone could let me know if I'm doing something wrong, if these were lemons, or if I'm just unlucky.

    Both lamps were on my bedside table, plugged into an extension cord that powers only the lamp and an alarm clock that runs under my bed to an electrical strip that is plugged directly into the wall. I've heard that it's stupid to daisy chain extension cords, but I figured that the load of the strip isn't above what would be dangerously high loads of current - the most the strip would be powering is the extension cord with my lamp and alarm clock, a wireless router and cable modem (these two are always on), and occasionally my laptop charger and an external HD that I use for backing up files. There is also a fuse on the strip that I figured would prevent any issues if the draw was ever too high. Totally let me know though if I'm totally naive and this is overloading a single strip!

    Both lamps (one was a cheap LED desk lamp from Walmart, the other was a lamp off amazon - can't post links yet, but I can PM you the link if you are interested) were off during the day, and when I went to turn them on in the evening before bed, they wouldn't turn on. Both times the alarm clock was still on and functioning, and if I tried to plug the lamps into different outlets they still didn't work. The Walmart lamp had a physical switch, and if I didn't flick it for 10 minutes, the light would flicker once or twice as I was activating the switch the first time, but it didn't stay on. If I kept flicking repeatedly, the flicker wouldn't happen until I waited a bit again. I thought this was just a cheap Walmart lamp that had a faulty connection, so I bought the next one. The second one doesn't flicker when you try to turn it on, but it has touch-sensitive buttons, so I'm not sure if when there's no juice, the touch panel doesn't work anyways, so no chance in getting that flicker. Frustratingly, the second lamp is just 10 days out of the return period on Amazon, and it's a third-party reseller, so I don't see how I'll be able to get much customer support from them.

    Now I'm out two lamps, I'm a poor grad student, and I'm really not happy about needing to buy another lamp for the third time. I thought I'd ask if anyone had any ideas whether my setup might be causing lamps to stop working on my setup - especially since the alarm clock is unaffected... - so that I can save my money on the next lamp that I'm going to have to buy.

    Thanks in advance for any help!

  • #2
    all LED lamps operate on some form of DC current. All LED lamps have either a bridge rectifier or just a two diode setup to change the AC to DC. normal draw for just one lamp is 1.2 volts. if there are ten LED lamps connected negative to positive, negative to positive [series connection] across a 120 volt dc line then they'd work. part of the circuit uses a current limiting resistor. LED lamps from Walmart are made in china, no quality control. most everything is now made in taiwan or china. if you want to do some trouble shooting go buy a cheapie ohm meter from radio shack or amazon online. if one led lamp burns out, the whole string won't light.

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