Screw Light

My Light Stand

Osmany is working on the vaulted ceiling and I'm thinking he could use some better light. 

Harbor Freight Halogen Work Light $37
Similar to the one we got from Home Depot 3 or 4 years ago for $65, but Home Depot doesn't carry them anymore. All their work lights are LEDs.

We have a couple of old halogen lights that came off of a cheap work light from Home Depot. 

AmazonCommercial 2000LM LED Work Light $16

We replaced those with some LED lights from Amazon because we got tired of paying $10 for a new halogen bulb every couple of months. 

300-Watt 4.7-Inch T3 Halogen Bulbs (5 Pack) $10

I also bought a pack of halogen bulbs from Amazon at the same time I bought the LED lights. I was operating under the dag nab it, we-need-more-light directive. So now I've got a pile lighting stuff, and I see we could use very tall work light, so I look around and I find a ten foot length of two-inch ABS pipe. That would be perfect. Now all I need is some scrap lumber to fashion a base and a cross bar and we should be good to go. With judicious use of a skilsaw and an electric screwdriver I was able to construct the base and the cross bar. Now all I need is a couple of wing nuts to secure the lights to the cross bar. And a switch box.

Switch box inside

It all went together well, but it didn't work, so the debugging began. First problem was the outlet I used had had been de-tabbed. Normal double electrical outlets are joined electrically by a tab. If you want one outlet controlled by a switch, you can break off this tab. No big deal, I can join them together with a bit of wire. Only problem is the number of screws that need to be removed and reinstalled to get this done.

Contact point and plate held by needlenose pliers

Now one of the lights doesn't work, and then the other one fails to light up, so I open them up, disassemble them and attack the points that contact the halogen bulb with a file. One contact has melted, so I replace it with a screw that I cut to length and then ground a sort of tip on it using an angle grinder. 

Lamp holder inside lamp body

Reassembling the points into the lamp holder requires placing a tiny nut in a hex recess in the ceramic block. You do this by setting the nut on top of the sharp point of a drywall screw and then sliding it up into the recess. Then you turn the ceramic piece upside down and replace the screw with a pencil size stick to hold the nut in place while you connect the wire to the contact with a screw. Tedious bit of fiddly work, perfect for a puzzle player.

5 1/2" Double Ended Halogen Socket with Bracket (2) $8

Things still aren't working, so I order some new lamp holders from Amazon. I mean I still have $10 worth of halogen bulbs left and I need to get my money's worth out them. Go through the same rigamarole that I used to get to the contacts so I could file them clean and install one of the new lamp holders. Still no light. Finally get the volt meter and check the switch - she's kaput. Well, a switch ten feet in the air is not very useful, so I take it out and patch the hole in the plastic switch box with duct tape. 

Finally we have light!

There must be a hundred screws in this simple little project.

P.S. This started as a simple little project I thought I would be able to throw together in an afternoon, but as it was it probably took me 8 hours spread over a week to gather all the pieces and screw it all together. It would have made more sense to just buy a couple more LED work lights and put them on the stand than to fuss with resurrecting these halogen fixtures. I think the problem with the halogen fixtures started when the first bulb burned out. I went to Home Depot to pick up a replacement. I think the original light came equipped with 350 watt bulbs, but they didn't have any of those. They had some 500 watt bulbs. More is better, right? They were bright but halogen bulbs are hot, and those 500 watt bulbs were really hot. I suspect that's what melted the contact points. I probably could have saved myself an hour or two by just going straight to buying the replacement lamp holders, but who'd a thunk that such things were even available? I certainly didn't. But like I said, fiddling with those was like working a jigsaw puzzle, tedious but rewarding in a pointless sort of way.