I have 4 recessed lights as well as 4 wall sconces in a room in my basement. The recessed lights have been on a dimmer since day one and work fine. The wall sconces are on a normal switch. My wife asked if we could put the dimmer (Lutron) on the wall sconce lights instead of the recessed. I cut the breaker and removed the outgoing wire from each switch (they are right next to each other) and swapped it between the switches. The switches share the neutral, grounds and power is jumpered from one switch to the other. When testing it, both sets of lights worked, but the dimmer had no effect on the sconces. Since it didn't work, I swapped it back and everything is back to what it was and working again. Is there a reason why the wall sconce lights would not work on a dimmer? Everything is using incandescent bulbs, no CFL's. Thanks, Bob

Greetings, I have (15) 9-W CFL security lights of the 2-pin replaceable bulb type, installed in 2002. Over the years, as replacement becomes necessary, about half the failures are fixed by a simple bulb replacement, the other half being electronic ballast failure, requiring replacement of the entire fixture. I've been accumulating these bad ballasts and now have (7), making it economically worthwhile to repair. Some research indicates the main electrolytic capacitor to be most often the culprit, followed by one or both transistors. There is a fuse on the hot input to the ballast, which is good on all units, none of them show bad solder joints, burns, bulging capacitor, ie., nothing obvious. With my electronics knowledge limited to Ohm's Law, and occasional soldering of small projects, I ask: Do I need a VOM with capacitance feature to check for bad capacitor? Can this be done without de-soldering? What about testing components under power? (Yes, I know, this is risky, with several hundred volts on the secondary side of the transformer). I'm just thinking, all (7) units probably have the same failed component, if I can only discover it.