Ready to retire!!!!

[76nemo]

gar, someone, can you please help me, please????


I am working on a couple of headscratchers right now, and this is the least of my worries, but I am baffled.


Mom bought a couple of touch lamps a couple of months ago. One will come on around dusk 3-4 times a week without being touched. No big deal, she likes the fact as it lights the middle of the living room on the low setting.

I know how touch lamps work, never seen a schematic for them, but that is irrelevant. The temp and RH stays the same in her house, but this one lamp will come on from time to time around dusk. The lamps are identical, and again, it's no bother to her at all, but WTH(heck) is going on here

All's I can do is hook a scope to them and leave it on Trendplot, but my battery is really stinking out, and is greatly limited.


She doesn't mind at all, but it urkes me to no end when I can't understand or figure something out in my head. I don't want to rip the felt off the bottom of the thing, but it's coming to it until I get an answer.

Does anyone have any kind of clue what could be going on here

 

[zog]

gar, someone, can you please help me, please????


I am working on a couple of headscratchers right now, and this is the least of my worries, but I am baffled.


Mom bought a couple of touch lamps a couple of months ago. One will come on around dusk 3-4 times a week without being touched. No big deal, she likes the fact as it lights the middle of the living room on the low setting.

I know how touch lamps work, never seen a schematic for them, but that is irrelevant. The temp and RH stays the same in her house, but this one lamp will come on from time to time around dusk. The lamps are identical, and again, it's no bother to her at all, but WTH(heck) is going on here

All's I can do is hook a scope to them and leave it on Trendplot, but my battery is really stinking out, and is greatly limited.


She doesn't mind at all, but it urkes me to no end when I can't understand or figure something out in my head. I don't want to rip the felt off the bottom of the thing, but it's coming to it until I get an answer.

Does anyone have any kind of clue what could be going on here

She have any cats?

 

[SEO]

My dad used to have that problem and I told him that he had ghosts.

 

[76nemo]

No animals, no nothing, excuse the grammar. It's the weirdest thing. That one lamp WILL be ripped apart, and I will buy her a new one, but darn, I can't imagine what it has to do with sundown It never comes on in the morning, and it only comes on 3-4 times a week.

 

[RUWired]

We had one in the house a while back that would come on when the jet style well pump came on. That would lead me to believe the voltage drop caused it. We went to submersible and got rid of the lamp since then.

Rick

 

[wptski]

I had a few years ago and the same thing was happening but it was caused when other lights in the home were turned ON but not all the time. I don't remember if they were on the same branch circuit or not. Finally just gave up on them.

 

[gar]

090226-2024 EST

76nemo:

I have never seen or played with one of these devices.

Assuming that when you touch it once it turns on and touch a second time it turns off, etc., and there are no other functions, then this is a basic flip-flop type device. You might call it a toggle function.

Depending upon the design of the device and how much work went into the design and circuit simplification will determine its susceptibility to line transients or RFI.

You might have line transients that occur around dusk and not at other times.

If you have an 8' foot Slimline fixture or #2 motor starter, these are both good high voltage transient generators. In the same outlet your light is plugged into rapidly plug and unplug one of these devices and see if this triggers a change of state.

Also voltage drops could cause your touch switch to change state.

Get a smooth face clear 250 W heat lamp or equivalent piece of non-conductive glass. Rub a piece of dissimilar material, wool for example, against the glass. Bring the glass close to the touch switch without touching and see if this triggers a change of state. This does not relate to your problem, but it is an interesting experiment.

You can prove that you can generate a charge on this face with a Fluke 27 meter in DC MV position. Other 10 megohm input impedance meters may work as well. I could see a few MV change with just the probe as an electrode. Then I added a table fork to the probe and got 10 to 20 times as much change. For an insulator for the probe and fork I laid them on a pad of paper.

Somewhat unrelated. I just tried the 8 foot Slimline test on my working test Leviton GFCI. I could not trip the GFCI. There is an MOV at the input of the GFCI and this is probably doing a good clipping job.

.

 

[ELA]

Maybe try plugging it into a plug strip with surge protection?
These devices operate on a change in capacitance between the base and ground.
What type of table does it sit on? Have you tried moving it to a different part of the house, different table top?

 

[steve66]

I would also guess noise, surges, or some other transient, like a voltage drop.

Are there any dimmer switches in the house?

Steve

 

[charlie b]

Could have something to do with being in direct sunlight during the say, and the sudden loss of sunlight as evening arrives. Whatever the actual cause, it seems clear that the control mechanism is very sensitive to changes.

 

[wexley]

solution

solution

try using a surge protection device plug in type i have had this problem with 3 wire circuits

 

[Mr. Bill]

How regular is her schedule in the evenings? Is she in the room our out of the room when it turns on? Have you witnessed this?

I know this is wild speculation but it might be something weird like every evening after dinner she cleans up and turns on the sink disposal. Then she goes into the other room to sit down and sees the light came on again. It's getting dark outside so she thinks the sunset must have been the cause. But something happens to drop the voltage to this lamp everytime the disposal motor is turned on. The voltage dip is what's turning on the lamp, not the sun.