ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area DIY Coil Lamp from Extension Cord

Take a look at this:

Coil Lamp

Any comments? How safe is this thing?

Don't know electrically how safe it is(UL listed portable luminaire?) but it certianly is not safe for my eyes or my wallet.

Put a 'designer' sounding name on, & you can sell anything!

I like it!

Heck, if this becomes standard, maybe we'll be able to change the NEC, so household receptacles can be 50 ft. ... or even 100 ft. ... apart!

I can see all the worrysome 'what ifs'. As a customer assembled product, I suspect it would be problematic getting it UL listed, no matter how sound the design. After all, UL places a lot of stock in their factory inspection service.

Then again, the homeowner won't have to look far to find an extension cord.

Reno:

You seem to forget...a decent extension cord already comes with a UL label!

Heck, you should see how some enterprising 'sign shops' hang all kinds of UL labels on their sign boxes!

I can't disagree with that! Ditto for some very expensive (can you believe some folks consider $150 cheap?) listed fixtures.

BTW, saw a floor lamp (torchiere) the other day, 3 bulb, candelabra base, little glass shades, kind of butt ugly in my opinion....price tag hanging on it was $979.99

Guess beauty is still in the eye of the beholder!

I would say they lost their U/L listing when they cut the receptacle off the end of that Carol cord and put a lamp holder on it.

I wouldn't buy it but I wouldn't be scared of it either.

Looks like the coiled cord has enough air space not to get hot. With a single cfl (even if they put an incandescent in it) it still draws so little current there's no voltage drop issue. And I'm not worried about "after market" wire splices. I make them all the time.

I've got a sink made out of coiled garden hose I'm selling for $500.

er..it may not have occurred to the designer, but the idea of a lamp is to provide light. The clue is in the name. It's also the main reason why all those mundane, clay-footed fuddy-duddy-dinosaur designers in the past made shades from translucent or transparent materials. This thing obscures at least three quarters of the CFL's already sparse lumens that are projected horizontally. If what you desperately need is a dim circle of light on the ceiling and have $150 burning a hole in your pocket, this is the baby for you! Alternatively, why not wrap an existing lampshade in spirals of insulting tape and save $$$!