Shock resistant lighting fixture

Abstract

A socket arrangement for a light fixture holding a tubular lamp having contacts on opposite ends, providing a fixed socket opposite a spring loaded socket with a lamp maneuvering cavity adjacent to the fixed socket, allowing a tubular lamp to be installed nearly straight-in to the sockets, and preventing electrical shock. By providing the maneuvering cavity opposite the spring loaded socket, a first end of a tubular lamp can be maneuvered into the cavity to allow an opposite end of the tubular lamp to insert into the spring loaded contact, and further insertion causes compression of the spring loaded contact, which retracts the first end out of the maneuvering cavity a sufficient distance to swing the first end through a slot formed in a side of the fixed socket and into the fixed socket, whereupon the spring loaded socket expands to resiliently hold the tubular lamp between the two sockets. Handling exposure of a free end of a tubular lamp while an opposite end is making electrical contact with a terminal is thus minimized during relamping.