How to Fix Touch Lamps

Touch dimmers are operated by your body. Your body acts as an antenna, or conductor, and touching any part of the metal on the lamp---coupled with the 60 Hz circuit---causes the lamp to turn on, off or dim. A touch lamp's convenience of operation makes it a good choice as a bedside reading lamp---easy off, easy on. Try fixing your touch lamp if it quits working rather than trashing it. Does this Spark an idea?

Instructions

1

Unplug the lamp from the electrical wall outlet.

2

Remove the bottom of your lamp. Use a flat-head screwdriver to pry off the bottom of the lamp, exposing the wiring and touch dimmer control.

3

Remove the touch dimmer control from your lamp. Remove the wire nuts that connect the touch dimmer control to your lamp by untwisting them. Should your touch dimmer control be hard-wired---connected without wire nuts---to the lamp, use wire cutter or strippers to cut the wires as close as you can to the touch dimmer control. If you have to cut the wires, you will need to strip 1/2 inch of insulation off of each wire.

4

Put the yellow wire from the new touch dimmer control onto the lamp. The yellow wire has a ring attached to the end and slides over the threaded nipple at the lamp base. Locate the nipple by locating where the lamp wire threads up the body of the lamp. The old yellow wire from the old dimmer control will be connected here. Use pliers to loosen the nut on the threaded nipple; remove the nut and the old yellow wire. Thread the lamp wire through the loop on the new touch dimmer control's yellow wire and place the loop over the threaded nipple. Replace the nut on the threaded nipple and tighten it securely.

5

Connect the black wire from the dimmer control to the lamp cord hot wire. Your dimmer control will have four wires: black, white, yellow with a brass ring on the end and an additional wire that will be either gray or red. Lamp wire is not color-coded and is usually colored to match the lamp or to be as unobtrusive as possible. The hot wire of your lamp will be smooth, while the neutral wire will be ribbed. Wire the smooth---or hot---wire that connects to the plug by twisting an orange wire nut onto it and the black wire from the dimmer control.

6

Connect the white neutral wires together. Connect the ribbed neutral wire that connects to the plug, the ribbed neutral wire that connects to the lamp socket and the white wire from the dimmer control together by twisting an orange wire nut onto them.

7

Connect the red or gray wire to the lamp socket hot wire. Locate the smooth hot wire that connects to the lamp socket and wire it to the red or gray wire from the dimmer control by twisting them together with an orange wire nut.

8

Replace the lamp bottom on the lamp base and plug your lamp into the electrical wall outlet.