Fixed my light :D

[yettitheman]

I fixed my light today:
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52071

^ Original thread. Same light though.

Today, however, with a sacrificial GE under cabinet/desk light, and some good old... well, I'll call it shoehorning, fixed it today! Yippee!

So, with 3 hours or so of soldering, hot glue, and back pain, you can too, make your broken "My Home Sign" light work again!

So... to make it work again, a trip to a local Wal-Mart will yield you a GE 6" under cabinet light for around $5. It's pretty important:

You will want the ballast and lamp from it. The lamp that came with the novelty light was much dimmer in the GE fixture than the one out of the GE fixture. So, use the GE bulb:

Notice that the GE ballast is much larger and has better parts from the get-go:

A little 22ga wire, and hot glue go a long way. Oh, and you also need a file to make the new ballast fit in the housing:

I'm very happy with my solder joints. You can't see the other 4 under the hot glue, but look at the joint closest to the bottom of the picture:

The result? It works great!

 

[Alex2507]

It just goes to show you that nothing is easy. The worst of it is that you have to know something to pull that off. Congratulations.
I recently got my first soldering iron. I feel like I'm building the space shuttle every time I use it.
Oh yeah, the hot glue gun ... tres cool.

 

[yettitheman]

It just goes to show you that nothing is easy. The worst of it is that you have to know something to pull that off. Congratulations.
I recently got my first soldering iron. I feel like I'm building the space shuttle every time I use it.
Oh yeah, the hot glue gun ... tres cool.

Well, I could have return shipped it back to Japan, and risk getting another faulty unit... yeah. It was cheaper and easier just getting the light from Wal-Mart and fitting it in there.

Even funnier, is that I was using the big 140 watt soldering gun. It's a little overkill, but I hate waiting on the 25w station to heat up. It also means I will not EVER have a cold solder joint. Did I mention that 140 watter can heat 12 gauge solid wire no problem?