Socket Rocket Modification

[mbettez]

I made a direct wire module out of a socket rocket because the socket rocket would not fit into my light fixture.  Here is a tutorial I made of the process.  If you find something wrong with the tutorial let me know so I can fix it.  If you have any questions feel free to ask.  I hope you enjoy!

http://tophatbrewery.com/files/socketrocket.pdf

[HA Dave]

Very impressive!!! And helpful as well. Looks like anyone with basic soldering skills could follow your step-by-step photo directions.

[-Bill- (of wgjohns.com)]

So, that's how you get those apart without killing them!      

  Cool!   

A helpful from me as well!

[Brian H]

Very nice modification.
Helpful from me also.

One slight difference in the one I broke apart when it self destructed with a POP.
Mine had no insulator board  between the two circuit boards. Maybe that is why mine went POP after running 30 minutes with a 100 watt bulb.

[dave w]

Yup - very nice!

This motivates me to try hacking a Socket Rocket, replacing the triac with a SSR for better control of transformer wall warts.

The standard SR distorts the sine wave just enough to make a small transformer run excessively hot. It's a bit disturbing to look behind the dresser and find the wall wart case melted down around the transformer after a year of what I thought was safe operation. I had two 5v wall warts powering "Flameless Candles" used for accent lighting. Both were melted but still working.

Yes I put that in my "Lessons Learned" book. 

FWIW the inductive wall warts were replaced with cheap cell phone switching chargers, which do not seem to be bothered by the triac wave form (he says confidently).

Mark, thank you very much for the professional write up.