Identifying wires

From Monday to today, about a c.1974-1993 fixture. Yes this lamp socket is still commonly available thru many sources. It will probably be time to change it. Lamp type availitity is good in even better lamps than the fixture was designed with. Still a viable and useful light. As with white/white/Green-white wiring... given a bi-pin lamp it could be both white wires and fine, if not more towards 93' in date of the fixture. No offense meant, but seek help in doing re-wiring for safety concerns about wiring and doing safety details. Also fixture cleaning/service notes such as shutter assemblies to work on.
 
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We had to discontinue the TP220 (has the Heat Sink you are all referring to as "fins") years ago as the small metal fabrication company that manufactured one of the tabs on it went out of business. We had the part quoted elsewhere, but they wanted a tooling fee that would have cost 10x what we make from sales of the socket over a 10 year period...so that was a non-starter. This is happening more and more and others will likely follow suit for similar reasons as volumes decline. It's simply not viable to have to place a 50,000 pc. minimum qty. buy (which I am learning is common for tiny parts) of a tiny metal clip or component for a socket that you sell 800 pcs/year of.
 
Hi, I've got a bunch of old lighting fixtures with different wire colors than I'm used to. There are two white, and one white with green stripe. How do I tell which is neutral and which is hot? (Sorry if this is a stupidly basic question. I'm new to this)

Green with a Stripe (usually yellow) is European wire code for a ground wire. (Blue and Brown are the other (hot/neutral) wire colors. In this case, as they point out above, it's A/C, so the Hot/Neutral doesn't REALLY matter in the larger sense. You may want to verify the wire gauge is good enough for USA voltages and amperages however. If this was originally designed for 230/240V operation, the wire gauge may be thinner that they should be for 120V operation.
 
Green with a Stripe (usually yellow) is European wire code for a ground wire. (Blue and Brown are the other (hot/neutral) wire colors.

To clarify - Green & yellow is ground, blue is neutral, brown, black and grey are phases. In a single phase circuit, the hot is brown. This is troublesome when you get new and old wiring colours in the same installation, where green was ground, black was neutral, red, yellow and blue were the phases. You can see the potential (ha!) for confusion already, can't you.
 
We had to discontinue the TP220 (has the Heat Sink you are all referring to as "fins") years ago as the small metal fabrication company that manufactured one of the tabs on it went out of business. We had the part quoted elsewhere, but they wanted a tooling fee that would have cost 10x what we make from sales of the socket over a 10 year period...so that was a non-starter. This is happening more and more and others will likely follow suit for similar reasons as volumes decline. It's simply not viable to have to place a 50,000 pc. minimum qty. buy (which I am learning is common for tiny parts) of a tiny metal clip or component for a socket that you sell 800 pcs/year of.
I wonder if that might become less of an issue as CNC equipment becomes more affordable and prevalent. Depending on the nature of the part, it may be practical to use, say, a CNC router or plasma cutter to cut a few dozen per quarter out of thin metal at an acceptable cost and without needing any costly unique tooling or setup when compared to, say, stamping them out.
 
@DELO72 do you happen to know when the TP220 socket was introduced? My recollection is the mid-1980s, which means that @Emaline 's black, rough-textured 360Q s probably weren't "born" with that socket. By the early 1980s, all Altman fixtures were "brown, hammertone finish."
 
Texture black for Altman was 1957-1962 as I'm told. World's Fair 1962 Altman got a large sales order for it and had to change colors to get it done on time. Was about the history of two 3" Fresnels I was researching from the primary owner when I bought them. Only trouble with the lore I was told was it was NY World's Fair instead of Seattle World's Fair. Altman is a NY brand so easy to confuse.

I have it as a note in question, one of my texture gray/black radial Leko's is an Altman #360 radial Leko and not a Hub Electric #8663 6x9 Leko. What year the #360 Leko series radial Leko started is still an operable question. The parts on the fixture are Altman not Hub. The aluminum body casting on this fixture is clean as opposed to normal Hub castings (lore about Hub buying old used up Altman castings - so that's why the vent holes are often sharper or have cast material sticking out into vent holes, but otherwise the casting and parts are the same.)

I have not done a color match comparison of this #360 fixture to the ?Altman #3300 radial Leko... I think is the first Altman Leko style I have in stock. Could be, but could also be Century or Hub. The three brands and many brands during about that 12 year period were seemingly copying designs or buying parts from each other. Have Leco brand Leko's with Kliegl vent hole patterns, but the red knobs associated to them or other brands also. Possible Hub in re-doing someone else's design used the Century paint color/supplier in theory Altman started with. If Altman started and broke from Century, one might have the same paint supplier.

Lore to me from my old TD says Altman started from a train wreck of Century Leko's. He was around back than but is dead now. Altman history is different in leaving it at that except a family or working at them relation to Century.

The Altman 360Q Axial Leko "Hammertone Brown" dates to 1974. Thus the Medium Bi-pin G-9.5 based EHG lamp to about the same date. Altman 360Q went black in 1993. Hub Electric, I believe went out of business in around 1998 - Ken Hanson - the last owner of Hub could confirm this as a member, but he has not been active. My doubt is that Hub Electric bought any 360Q castings from Altman in its last years.

I am not aware of any other brands of fixtures having bought a spent casting to an Altman fixture in making their own. In above photo's in post, I would like to see the yellow sticker on the yoke on the photo. Be it brand sticker or union sticker - made by Chicago verses New York would tell Hub or Altman fixture by way of which sticker on it.

Most likely it's a bad color renering on a photo of a dirty fixture. Black or brown, the Altman 360 has never been texture black - and short of re-painting with not heat rated paint should not be. An Altman 360Q is in photo.

TBA. photo a is it Kliegl or LECO Leko brand? Axial (360Q) type lamp on center to the reflector, but with a P-28s lamp socket. Kliegl style vent holes, but red knobs associated with LECO brand. And the Century (before Century Strand) radial Leko's where at some point Century/Strand went G-9.5 EHG adaptors to make the radial Leko's use the more modern lamp.

About 1974 or up to say 1970 before was appairently a very important change in Leko/Lamp design - fixtures and lamps were very much re-designed either to create a fixture using existing P-28s lamps in a new axial fixture design to use them, or adapt a current radial design so as to mount a new modern Altman 360Q lamp.

Attached is a Century/Strand #2321 - I believe this the G-9.5 lamp version part number, or will be once I upgrade it. My P-28s version of the Leko is corrupted and will to check another source for it's part number as converted to TBA what Major called them. Same fixture, decals from them were removed by the retailer Major in Major reselling them as per their own with a normal P-28s lamp type. Big yoke knobs on the sides saying Major. Don't know what year Major did this, seemingly they never did the upgrade from P-28s to G-9.5, so pre- 1974. Also, don't know what year Major was bought out by Hub Electric. Small world - both Chicago.


This period of Leko or stage lighting design fixtures - between say 1957 and 1974 should not be a mystery about brands and fixture history, yet it often is harder to research than between 1910 and 1928. Black holes with both periods, but living memories I have tales from often complicate in those dying before I can confirm at least the last era, or tales of the first.

Anyway, perhaps not texture black in bad photo, or if cleaned and the color... I would be more worried about the paint applied and research into if the fact not heat rated paint was used.
 

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Hi Emaline, You may already know this but I couldn't help but notice that exposed lamp. Make sure you clean it good with alcohol before you power it up. The oils from your fingers will cause the envelope to develop a hotspot and fail.
 

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