I have this halogen torchiere lamp that turns off regularly if I have it on the high setting. It always stays off for 60 seconds at a time, and stays on for only a couple of minutes in between. I looked and there is a thermistor visible so it's apparently a thermal cutoff and I guess the lamp doesn't get enough airflow to stay cool.
So I decided to cool it. First I thought about wiring a 120V fan into the lamp's switch so that it turned on anytime the lamp was on the high setting, but I decided I didn't feel like disassembling the lamp to find the wires. So I decided on batteries and a 12V computer case fan. I was going to go with 7V but found I didn't have enough batteries, but I had a 9V battery so I went with that, and it's working well. I used a butane soldering torch, but I can never get the soldering tip to actually heat up on it, so I used bare flame on the solder.
http://evermorex.home.comcast.net/projects/solder.html
Tested it, it keeps the lamp from turning off. I might try out 7V when I get some batteries, and see about cleaning up the fittings. I need to put longer wires on anyway so I can stick the switch and battery to the lamp where it's easy to hit the switch, and maybe change to a toggle switch. Right now they're just hanging from the edge of the lamp housing because it seemed too hot for them sitting on top so close to the bulb. But even though I can barely feel the airflow, it's keeping the lamp cool. I don't know for sure if it's cooling what needs to be cooled, it could just be cooling the thermistor, but I tried to avoid that.
So I decided to cool it. First I thought about wiring a 120V fan into the lamp's switch so that it turned on anytime the lamp was on the high setting, but I decided I didn't feel like disassembling the lamp to find the wires. So I decided on batteries and a 12V computer case fan. I was going to go with 7V but found I didn't have enough batteries, but I had a 9V battery so I went with that, and it's working well. I used a butane soldering torch, but I can never get the soldering tip to actually heat up on it, so I used bare flame on the solder.
http://evermorex.home.comcast.net/projects/solder.html
Tested it, it keeps the lamp from turning off. I might try out 7V when I get some batteries, and see about cleaning up the fittings. I need to put longer wires on anyway so I can stick the switch and battery to the lamp where it's easy to hit the switch, and maybe change to a toggle switch. Right now they're just hanging from the edge of the lamp housing because it seemed too hot for them sitting on top so close to the bulb. But even though I can barely feel the airflow, it's keeping the lamp cool. I don't know for sure if it's cooling what needs to be cooled, it could just be cooling the thermistor, but I tried to avoid that.
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