Wooden Tripod Floor Lamp

Details

A 150 cm tripod floor lamp on solid sheesham legs, Dalbergia sissoo, with a cotton drum shade, built and tested to IS 10322 Part 1 and Part 5 Section 4. A floor lamp is a tipping hazard before it is a light. It stands beside a sofa at head height with a wide shade acting as a lever, and children and dogs walk into it, which is why the luminaire standard puts it on an inclined plane and requires it to stay upright, and why that is the first number that should be printed and never is. The wiring cheats are the same ones every decorative lamp carries: undersized flex, copper-clad aluminium sold as copper, a missing earth on a fitting with an exposed metal holder, and no stated maximum lamp so someone fits an incandescent into a shade that cannot take the heat. And the tripod itself is often not what it looks like, since wood-grain painted steel photographs identically to timber.

• Stays upright on a 6 degree incline in every direction with the shade fitted, which is the luminaire stability test
• Legs are solid Dalbergia sissoo, steel through-bolted at the yoke, not painted steel and not veneered
• Weighted steel base plate inside the yoke, which is what makes the stability figure achievable at 150 cm
• Flex is 3 core, 0.75 sq mm annealed copper to IS 694, 2.5 m long, earthed, with a moulded 6 A three-pin plug and a foot switch
• B22d holder to IS 1258, rated 2 A at 250 V
• Maximum 15 W LED, printed on the lamp. Never an incandescent above 40 W
• Insulation resistance above 2 megohm at 500 V DC, dielectric withstand 1.5 kV for one minute, earth continuity below 0.1 ohm
• The shade is cotton laminated to a polystyrene backing, declared rather than described simply as cotton. Bulb not included. Assembly is three legs and six bolts, about ten minutes, and the tripod needs a 60 cm footprint of clear floor.