E27 to E14 Base LED Light Bulb Lamp Converter Screw Socket Adapter Holder Lamp Holder Converter (WHL #55)
I had an oopsie yesterday. Last December I got a bunch of E14 LED lights for free, but there’s no E14 lamp left in my home, only E27s. So as there are E27 (light) to E14 (socket) adapters (which I have in stock), I bought matching E14 to E27 adapters on our favourite Wan Hung Lo shopping website for 0.44€ a piece (x4, shipping included). Those came in some day this week.
While cleaning up a table I ran across these, and following the five minute rule, I decided to not just put them away to test stuff later, but to just pop in a light and verify they’re working. I mean…what could possibly go wrong with a simple mechanical adapter that is even simpler than the E27 to E14 ones that stack high up for geometric reasons?
Well, for starters, the lights could go out.
And there could be a skid mark on the very finger that I used to flip the switch. Roughly shaped like the switch itself.
I wonder: Could both of these strange things be related to the two new things that I plugged into the mains for the very first time?
Upon unplugging shit in the dark (night time, rooms are fused individually but neighbouring ones are on the same phase, the living room apparently is on a different one) I returned to a well-lit room to plan what to do next.
Skid mark: Well, something has blown up. All digits still attached to my hand where I expect them to be. Great.
Room breaker: Popped that back in – it’s still very dark in that room. Strange.
Main breaker: Well – that one triggered, too. Great job!
Back in well lit environment, this is the E14 base:
So chances are it’s not something inside of that light, as that would have blown off something closer to the LED side of things. I also checked the rating, maybe there are lunatics out there that would sell 12V lights with E sockets, but that’s not the case here. As the lamp literally worked 30 seconds before putting in that light with the adapter, I doubt it has something to do with the shade itself. Only culprit left is the adapter – but how on earth can that thing fail?
Well, take a look:
Shown above is a new adapter inside the E27 lamp shade. Notice the flat metal piece that sticks up at an angle? That’s the bottom contact. I’d expect that to be a springy contact that steadily presses against the bottom contact of the light. It does not. Out of the four examples that I tried, two of them will just be squashed to the bottom and never return at all. So there’s contact, but not a very good one.
However that didn’t happen to my very first specimen. That one did this:
When screwing the lamp into the base, there’s some audible grinding for all of them. That’s not just the cheap plastic adjusting to the rigid metal socket, but it’s also the bottom contact somehow getting caught and being moved around. Not sure how that works, but it did on that one and on one of the others.
Now with the E sockets, there’s this bottom contact and there’s one on the coarse threading, separated by a few millimeters which usually does the job. Bending the bottom contact up to meet the edge of the thread is the perfect recipe to burn down your house
So, here’s the poor 3A switch contact of the lamp itself, which has a welding spot that shouldn’t be there, plus soot marks all around. Everything also smelled a bit of…amps.
It’s not really pleasant to exchange the switch with the ageing wiring (insulation) of that lamp, the lamp itself doesn’t work all that well for my high up water bed with no nightstand, so I finally trashed it after a good 20 years of service. Now looking for a new one, or a nice way to control the 40W of LED power around the bed with a physical button. We’ll see, might make a new project post one day.
Lessons learned:
* Circuit breakers prevent skid marks and blown off body parts to a certain degree (YMMV)
* Wan Hung Lo mains power equipment literally down to a mechanical socket adapter is not to be trusted any further than I can throw it – and I’m a lousy thrower
* Following the five minute rule doesn’t mean you’re done with the thing in five minutes time
And, on a side note: The refund request filled with some sarcastic comments on the item description and three of the images shown above got decided in less than ten minutes with no dispute of the facts. Of course that doesn’t prevent any of the sellers of actually selling those fire hazards to other folks that might have a worse day than I did…