Long gone the seperate parts and good thing they are. Once had a person forget to install the mica shields behind her many replaced sockets a few years back over a number of fixtures. That was a shorting to frame
bug hunt that took about a year to finally weed out.
Also, a pin and
socket of that size... not worth cleaning much if at all.
Bit of carbon at the most possible but after that and only very minor forget it - too small and not worth your time for what the end results will be.
Attached are some photos of some G-38 lamp sockets (38mm bet. pins at about 5/16" dia on the pins) as opposed to G-9.5
heat sink sockets at about 1/16" dia per pin. Yes, its possible to resurface a lamp
socket, but it had at best be cost effective to do so and you had at best be able to get at what you are working on to do it properly. In the case of a S-4
fixture much less a
PAR lamp or most other sockets undre a G-22 or P-28s in size.... nope nada in really having an
effect on the
socket.
This above and beyond the concept of cleaning / resurfacing takes away material from the
socket be it coating which helps with heat or in general surface area that contacts the pins in providing a good electrical contact. If in either case what you will be doing will remove it, probably what you will do will only be a short term fix and that at best. Sure if a
bit of oxidation you can
clear away it and provide a coating to the fresh metal but after that and if such a coating is not provided in protecting the surface forget about it. And on a S-4
base, it's not enough metal to provide a coating or even service without removing too much properly.
Why since it's just a
crimp terminal ETC didn't make available its sockets in the old style fittings to the market cheap is no doubt part of lore for the industry in how easy it would be to save the
whip and replace the
terminal, but on the other
hand the modern
socket does protect against as above the person forgetting the mica
shield or not properly installing the
base as it were. Price for the new
socket assembly is also not that much more than a lamp and falls in
line in price with most similar
socket prices. Well worth not just that investment but a spare pre-done
lamp cap at least that can be swapped out for in a pinch.
And as always, inspect the lamps removed from a
fixture for what caused its failure and the pins for especially in the pins an indicator of when a fixtures
socket is toast. Wouldn't believe how much money per year goes down the tubes especially for moving light lamps we waste on lamps simply because someone changing the lamp didn't bother to look at the lamp pins in seeing the
socket it was attached to was toast. Often two or three lamps later such a thing welds itself to the
socket in having to finally change the
socket. Hmm, like $30.00 for a new
socket, but it takes about over $300.00 worth of lamps to finally see the
socket is causing the lamps to become toast before their time. And this only after ultimate failure of the
socket.
Changing lamp sockets when they start to go is a cheap investment as opposed to what the cost in lamps going bad with a bad but not persay seen to be bad short of welding to the lamp costs can run up. Inspect them bad lamps for the cause of the failure and the pins before installing a new lamp in its place.
If in doubt, or not able to have skilled labor analize the bad lamps, have that pre-inspected or spare
lamp cap go up with every lamp replacement and don't toss the lamp so later someone can inspect both without having to do so on the fly.