When I installed the tiled bathroom floor back in November, I took that opportunity to check over my dollhouse to see if there were any repairs that needed to be done.
That’s when I noticed a lighting issue on the 1st floor of the house. This dollhouse is electrified using round wire. The previous month I’d received an email from my favorite local miniatures store saying that they were closing their doors at the end of 2011 and knew it was time to head out there for some much needed electrical supplies.
The electrical problems were that the ceiling light in the entry hall didn’t work and then the lights in the living room were all turning on no matter which switch that controlled the living room lights was turned on.
The living room light situation confused me and I decided to put off the repairs until later when I could devote the time to resolving them. I examined the light in the entry hall and determined that it had come unattached to the ceiling. I glued it back in place and then examined the wiring when it still didn’t turn on. The wiring appeared to be fine, so I examined it’s connection to the control panel on the back of the house. I have diodes attached to the lights in the entry hall and the dining room, so that the light from them is dimmer than they would be without it. My feeling is this gives the lights a more realistic appearance.
My belief was that the diode on the entry hall light needed to be replaced. I don’t have an electrical engineering degree, but that doesn’t mean that it’s necessary when wiring a dollhouse or miniature scene. However, when I’ve developed a theory about any electrical problem I’m having—I consult my husband who has an EE degree. I told him my theory and that I couldn’t find any other reason for the problem and he said that yes, diodes can die after awhile. We went out to a local Radio Shack and got a couple of new ones. I replaced the dead diode with the new one and my entry hall lighting problem was solved!
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| Entry Hall with fixed ceiling light |
Today I was able to look into the electrical problems in the living room. I got out my binder that contains the diagrams I made when I first electrified the house. Switched on each of the lights that had issues back in November one by one. Next to my notations for each switch, I wrote down what was happening now.
It seemed that my problem had changed. Now the lights all worked independently except that the lamp in the front living room window would come on with the entry hall light. I pulled the house a little off the table that it sits on, so that I could examine the wiring underneath. The wiring looked fine with the exception of the fact that the masking tape that had been holding to the underside of the house had come loose and was now hanging down. This led me to examine the wiring of the control panel at the back of the house.
I unscrewed it from the back and it appeared that everything was fine. Then I noticed that the diode from the entry hall light was reaching all the way over to the 7th switch that controlled the lamp in the front window. The diode is pretty much swathed in tape, but there’s a bit of the end that’s not protected and I felt that I might have found my problem. I gently pulled the diode a little away from the panel and tested out the 7th switch. Surprise, the living room lamp lit up without the entry hall light turning on as well.
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| Living Room |
I still asked my husband if this was possible and he confirmed my theory. His suggestion was to put tape over the traces on the back of the control panel. This would keep the diode from coming in contact with them and keep it from creating a short, which was causing my electrical problems. He gave me some wonderful electrical tape to use for this, and I also used it to tape the wiring underside of the dollhouse’s first floor.
It’s great that I was able to resolve my electrical problems without spending any money or having to reconstruct my wiring system.
