Yes!
Finally, I have replacement bulbs for the aquarium light fixture that has a built in timer. The package came in today’s mail.
I was a little alarmed when I saw it, though.
In the first image of the slideshow above, you can see a very distinct bend in the packaging!
Thankfully, in the next two images, you can see that the bulbs were well protected. The angled packaging the bulbs were taped into is very solid. In fact, I will be keeping it, as it will probably come in handy for something!
In the next photo, you can see the bulbs next to the fixture laying upside down on the table.
Not that there is a cover over the bulbs.
That was my first problem.
When we got the fixture, years ago, and assembled it, we were never able to get that cover completely on, so about a quarter inch of it was sticking past the end of the fixture, which you can see in the next photo.
Not a lot to grab on to, but it shouldn’t have needed any at all.
After removing the legs at that end, I fought with that thing for at least half an hour. I ran a utility knife blade between the cover and the tracks. I used WD40. I even found an angled tool that I used to try and lever it from the far end. Nothing worked.
I figured if I had some pliers or something to grip the bit sticking out, that might help. After looking around the basement, I found our old pair of vice grips.
Perfect!
I just needed to close the jaws more and…
…
…close the jaws…
…
…turn the adjustment screw to close the jaws…
(apply WD40 liberally)
Just turn that adjustment screw…
Nothing. It would not move.
Well, I’ve got a handy vice at the table. I’ll just get the vice to hold the adjustment screw and I should be able to spin the vice grips to tighten and loosen the jaws.
Yes. I put vice grips into a vice.
I made that vice as tight as I could. Tight enough that it was actually starting to damage the grip texture on the adjustment screw. I still ended up spinning the screw in the vice instead of the screw itself moving.
Okay, that wasn’t going to happen.
Well, if I found something thick enough, I could put that with the bit of cover sticking out and grip both. It just needed to be at least thick enough for the vice grips to close onto it. Maybe some wadded up paper towel.
Nope.
I tried a piece of leftover wood that almost worked. It was thick enough, but too wide for the vice grips to reach the bit of cover I was trying to grab.
More searching around the basement.
I ended up finding a small scrap of wood in the garbage can I have just for wood, sawdust and other burnables. It was uneven on one side, but that didn’t matter as much. I was finally able to grip the edge of the cover and pull on it.
It took several tries, getting it to move, little by little, before it finally came loose, and I could pull it out without the vice grips.
Once it was clear, I wiped it down along the edges, partly to get the excess WD40 off, but also to wipe off whatever was making it stick. There really wasn’t anything, so I used a utility knife in the track it slid into, to scrap what anything that might have been in there. There were two spots, one on each side, that seems to have something stuck in the track. One spot seemed to be plastic; when we got the fixture, the cover had a protective layer of plastic on it, and not all of it seems to have come off. The spot on the other side might have had some plastic in it, too, but there may also have been some mineral build up from when this was set above the big aquarium. The hinges on the glass covered broke, which is why we got a fixture with legs at each end, in the first place. The other one sat right on top of the glass covers.
So, that was finally off and the tracks cleared up.
I did not put it back on again.
Okay! The bulbs are uncovered. I just needed to rotate the bulbs to removed them.
Just… rotate those bulbs.
Rotate.
Is there a trick to this?
They simply would not rotate, and there was very little room to work with.
Looking closely at the connectors, I could see some black plastic that appeared to be some sort of lock? But how would I move those so the bulbs could be rotated?
I never did find out.
While fiddling with them at one end, I ended up breaking off one half of the black plastic.
At which point, I was able to rotate the bulb. The other end rotated fine; the black plastic rotated with the bulb. Which didn’t happen at the end I was working on.
Okay, that’s out, time to try the second one.
Once again, it would NOT rotate – until half the black plastic piece broke off!
After that, it rotated just fine.
*sigh*
No matter. I could now install the new bulbs. They fit just fine, and even rotated fairly easily into position.
*sigh*
Then I plugged it in to test it out.
I even remembered to flip the fixture onto its side, so I wouldn’t blind myself.
It worked!!! Yay!
It only took me almost an hour to do something that should only have taken a few minutes!
That finally done, I got it set up. I decided to take the other fixture out completely, and that’s now stored under the work table. The light with the new bulbs was set up, with bricks removed to make it lower. The shelve section I’d brought out earlier was set up over the whole thing. The tray with the winter squash was moved off the heat mat and is now under the shop light. That allowed me to remove one of the heat mats and center the tray with the eggplant, peppers, luffa and pre-germinating tomato seeds onto the other heat mat.
You can sort of see the new set up in the last photo. Instagram wouldn’t show the whole image, so the new light fixture looks like another surface over the seed pots.
This light fixture does put off some heat. When we were still allowing the cats in the living room while we had seeds started, we would sometimes see Fenrir, in particular, sitting on the light fixture, keeping warm. It isn’t much, but that will provide at least a bit of warmth to the winter squash tray above.
I had the heater running the entire time I was working on this, and it didn’t seem to make much difference to the room at all.
So that turned out to be a much bigger job than expected, but we now have more light for the seedlings.
If it weren’t for the temperature down there, the basement would actually be an excellent place to set up a plant room. Ah, well. We make do with what we can!
Meanwhile, I peaked at the tomato seeds, and I think I could actually see radical emerging on a couple of them! I’ll check again tonight, before I shut the lights down. If I really was seeing radicals, that would sure have been fast – they were set out to germinate only yesterday!
Not too shabby, that’s for sure!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 