New cord for an old fluorescent lamp
My wife and I inherited a number of things from the previous owner of our home.
Some were fairly handy, such as a stainless-steel cheese shaker. (It’s now a bonemeal/pepper dispenser for keeping rabbits away from our garden in the summer.)
Some were less handy, such as a rusty ironing board. (This item disappeared quickly from our curb.)
Somewhere in the middle was the hanging fluorescent light in the basement.
It did provide light, which was much appreciated. But its cord had seen better days. Electrical tape held together two separate breaks. One day, the cord spontaneously fell apart. (Maybe I looked at it wrong.) A breaker blew. I was in the dark.
I worked without the light for a few months. Finally, the darkness got to me. I was sick of not being able to see. It was time for Dr.-Frankenstein-style cord-transplant surgery. (Cordectomy was already taken.)
Taking the thing apart was easy enough. I removed the bulbs, unscrewed a few screws, and the innards were exposed. Wire nuts held the wires together. No soldering was required. Fantastic!
Next, I scrounged my electrical-scrap box for a suitable replacement cord. The donor turned out to be a failed surge protector.*
I cut the cord free from the power strip with a bolt cutters, stripped away the outer covering on the end with a knife and some scissors, and stripped a bit of plastic off the ends of the wires with an automatic wire stripper, one of the best tools ever.
The only trouble I encountered during this project was the plastic thing that held the wire in place.
This piece had to come out of the lamp before I could put the new cord in. But how to remove it? A Google search could help, but what would I search for? I had no clue what to call it.
Finally, I got lucky and stumbled across this Stackexchange forum post. The answer to my question: The random plastic piece was a wire snap bushing, and I could remove it with a Vise Grips.
I squeezed on the inside end and pushed it free from the lamp, cord in tow. Unfortunately, my donor cord was thicker than the original, so the aforementioned wire snap bushing wouldn’t fit.
Instead, a combination clamp connector did the trick.
Reassembly was the reverse of disassembly. (Crazy, I know.) If you try this yourself, just remember to run the cord through the clamp connector first, or else you’ll have to disconnect everything and start over. Trust me.
With the lamp back together, the moment of truth had come. Would it blow a breaker? Would it come to life? Would it flee into the woods, eventually becoming intelligent and articulate?
None of the above! The lamp worked. Much joy was felt. I took the opportunity to move it to the darker side of the workshop, where it hangs to this day.
SUMMARY: REPLACING CORD ON AN OLD FLUORESCENT LIGHT
Difficulty: 1 ½ stars out of 5. Pretty easy.
Skills required: Attention to detail. Ability to turn screwdriver, twist wires together.
Tools required: Screwdriver. Vise Grips or pliers. Wire stripper of some sort. Bolt cutters weren’t necessary, but they cut through the power cord like butter, so you should use them if you have them.
Cost: Less than $4 for the clamp connector, minus tools. A comparable lamp runs between $10 and $60, plus bulbs. If you had absolutely no source for a donor cord, you might have to spend $6–10 on a donor extension cord.
Was this worth doing? Absolutely. I have no clue how long a $10, budget-brand fluorescent light would last. This lamp might have been a comparably cheap model. But I don’t have to wonder, because I only spent $4 on mine. I also kept it out of the junk heap for a few more years, which makes me happy.
*I once was tempted to replace the huge fuse that had burnt out inside this power strip, but after some reflection, I decided against that. A lot of juice can move through surge protectors, and there was no way I’d ever have time to track down the true problem with the device. It would be a shame to burn down a house in an attempt to save a few bucks.
This archive post was originally published May 4, 2015.
