Does anyone else get annoyed with the cheapness of the replacement lamp sockets you can buy at Lowes for table lamps? The push switch breaks on many lamps, prompting a need to replace them, which is easily done on paper, but if you suffer from crippling OCD like me, it's impossible to feel good after the job is done, besides the fact it lights the living space as intended for a lamp to do.
The things that bother me:
1. If you get the metal casing lamp sockets, they have a cheap, laminated cardboard protective insert within the shell that you must juggle as you push it down into the base.
2. If you screw the base onto a threaded insert to the lamp body, you can never get it tight "correctly" such that the push button is in the correct axis with respect to the lamp's symmetry, and that will change anyways as things loosen up. I.e., you cannot, unless lucky, get the lamp socket to align with how you want to use the lamp. And as I've peppered the rant in this subsection, you cannot tighten it permanently, unless I guess you go get some threadlock? I don't know, what's the use?
3. The philips head screws that tighten the hot and neutral cables have the smallest heads possible, such that the wires easily slip off while tightening, so you must be careful to get the stranded 16/18 AWG wire within the grips of the small head.
4. [Minor rant since I'm not color-blind]: the aforementioned philips head screws are brass and silver to indicate polarity, so you must see subtle difference to know where + and - are, unless you wanna get out your DMM to test it out.
5. For the metal casing sockets, pushing them together forms a somewhat permanent bond, and it's difficult to push them together without bending the base stem.
TLDR: Replacing lamp sockets is tricky, you work with the cheap parts the industry sells you, and you don't have the confidence you'd like after the install is finished.
The things that bother me:
1. If you get the metal casing lamp sockets, they have a cheap, laminated cardboard protective insert within the shell that you must juggle as you push it down into the base.
2. If you screw the base onto a threaded insert to the lamp body, you can never get it tight "correctly" such that the push button is in the correct axis with respect to the lamp's symmetry, and that will change anyways as things loosen up. I.e., you cannot, unless lucky, get the lamp socket to align with how you want to use the lamp. And as I've peppered the rant in this subsection, you cannot tighten it permanently, unless I guess you go get some threadlock? I don't know, what's the use?
3. The philips head screws that tighten the hot and neutral cables have the smallest heads possible, such that the wires easily slip off while tightening, so you must be careful to get the stranded 16/18 AWG wire within the grips of the small head.
4. [Minor rant since I'm not color-blind]: the aforementioned philips head screws are brass and silver to indicate polarity, so you must see subtle difference to know where + and - are, unless you wanna get out your DMM to test it out.
5. For the metal casing sockets, pushing them together forms a somewhat permanent bond, and it's difficult to push them together without bending the base stem.
TLDR: Replacing lamp sockets is tricky, you work with the cheap parts the industry sells you, and you don't have the confidence you'd like after the install is finished.
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