List Price: $39.99
Sale Price: $39.06
Today's Bonus: 2% Off
I bought this lamp intending to upgrade it to make it an LED lamp, by dropping in a LED bulb module.
First off, when I got it, I was disappointed to find it used a 120 volt, GU10 base MR16-like lamp, NOT a bi-pin 12 volt MR16 lamp.
I bought some nice 120 VAC 9 watt 3 x 3watt Cree LED GU10 base, soft white (3000 deg Kelvin) MR16 style modules (at $15) for the lamp, and the resulting light output was excellent. Tho not quite as bright as the 35 watt incandescent lamp it came with, the light output was JUST FINE for reading... and then some. Tho these modules WOULD NOT dim, either with an old style dimmer or with one rated to work with CLFs and LEDs.
The switch on the base was a textbook case of totally stupid, incompetent user interface design: You had to grab it between two fingers and rotate it to turn the lamp on and off, and even then the feel of the switch was vague and disconcerting. Those with arthritis in their hands would have a hard time with this one.
I bought push on push off switches on Ebay for $3.00 each, and took the lamp's base apart.
This required an xacto knife to cut the felt, then had to remove 3 screws and a plate.
The push on push of switch DID NOT drop right into the hole left after removing the old switch... a dremel tool was needed to enlarge the hole slightly... but after that the switch dropped right nicely, and connected up nicely, too, using the wire nuts found inside the lamp.
So, in the end I got a very elegant bed-headboard reading lamp, LED-based, and with a
superb ergonomic push on push off switch.
If you are a tinkerer and can duplicate these efforts, you will wind up with a very fine lamp. If not, DO NOT BUY THIS, for off the shelf it has too many flaws.
---marty
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