Repairing a Pola Lamp

[viaEstrecha]

Some nasty cat or pigeon has snapped a Pola lamp attached to one of my buildings. The photo shows it after 36 months outside and I have brought it in for maintenance; marker 'B' shows the type of lamp and damage.

I have fixed everything else now and the farmhouse is ready to go back outside, but the Pola lamp refuses to work and I suspect one of the wires is broken inside it. It is not a blown bulb, BTW

So, my question is, can anyone offer any advice on how to open up one of these lamps to get at the wiring? I also have some lattice yard lamps with similar heads, bought cheaply but 'as seen' on eBay and these seem to need internal wiring repairs too, so I really do need a masterclass in how to disassemble Pola lamps without wrecking them with my fat fingers!

 

[Railway42]

Hi, I have done many of these and fitted LEDs to them. If they have been outside for a long time it should be easy to take them apart. Firstly pull the white tulip away from the shade then carefully twist the shade and that should come away from the arm. Then with a sharp Stanley knife carefully place between the two halves of the arm and it should come apart quite easily. The wiring and the bulb holder is then visible between the two halves. It is the same procedure for the lattice yard lamps. The only difference is to carefully tease off the square base first then when replacing the wiring and gluing together use a hard plastic glue. If you are taking these apart I would suggest you change the bulb and holder for a high brightness LED. If you use a 1K resistor you can wire it back to your existing system. Hope this is helpful.

Alan (Railway42)

 

[viaEstrecha]

Many thanks, Alan - I suppose I needed the confidence that someone else has tried and succeeded. I'll give it a try and report back...

 

[beavercreek]

I have found that the plastic in these can get quite brittle over time and the arms just shatter when flexed.

I have also replaced the tungsten bulbs with led ones. These are screw and sized just like the tungsten ones and have a rectifier and resistor on board so that they are not polarity sensitive and work from 7 to 22volts.

 

[viaEstrecha]

Well I did try, Alan, honest! But Mike's observation about the brittleness was borne out by the wall lamp and despite using my finest scalpel, I chickened out as the sound of cracking increased

So, I bodged. For the lattice yard lights, when I looked more closely, only one head needed repair - the previous owner had managed to remove the entire bulb holder. For both broken heads, as I had wimped out from prising apart, I decided instead to use external wiring and drilled a hole down into the top of the shade, as close to the centre as I could. The leads were attached to the necks with fine fuse wire, and when painted, they aren't too obtrusive.

For the yard lamp heads with intact holders, I did indeed put in LED bulbs (sourced from eBay Germany as described in another thread) and then for the 2 duff ones, I used a slightly different sort of LED bulb, also with built-in resistor. A very helpful company in Cumbria, which makes industrial LEDs (including for 1:1 rolling stock) had kindly donated some of their smallest bulbs, which are intended for control panels, and have clear plastic heads. I soldered leads directly to them. For the yard lamp with the missing bulb holder, the new LED is held within the shade at the same height as the other screwed-in LED bulbs and apart from being a very slightly different shade of white, you'd hardly know I'd bodged it. The little panel at the top of the pylon I could get apart with a fine blade and I hollowed out the space inside to allow me to solder to the existing leads running down to the base.

The farm wall lamp still had its screw holder inside and so the new LED protrudes slightly beneath the lamp shade, but I don't mind this at all, as it is in keeping with the decrepit feel of the model and will actually provide better illumination of the farmyard.

The pot of Vaseline just visible under the yard lamps is because I habitually give any bulb screw thread a thin smear before screwing in - used to do it when I lived in Germany - not sure if it does last in actuality, but it always did seem to make bulbs easier to change later. But with luck, these LEDs should outlive me.

Now to get back in the garden, to sort out the wiring, or else all this bodging will have been in vain.

 

[beavercreek]

Way to go!

I think it may have been a thread that I posted about the led bulbs. They are more expensive than wiring your own and then ensuring correct polarity etc but they are quick and with a bit of sanding, become less 'directional'.
So far they have lasted for over four years on my layout........

 

[dunnyrail]

These are useful. Available for either 3mm or 5mm LEDS.
I have stacks of 'em.
12mm diam x approx. 8mm back to front.

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Ross those look to be a goid resource, can you give us a link of where to get them as a few searches did not show up anything like those.
JonD