# Keyless



## nolabama (Oct 3, 2007)

Why is a keyless called a keyless. What does it mean? If anything.


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## HARRY304E (Sep 15, 2010)

nolabama said:


> Why is a keyless called a keyless. What does it mean? If anything.


Mdshunk posted this on another Forum


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## LegacyofTroy (Feb 14, 2011)

I assume that if there's no switch , (on fixture,)and it only holds bulb , one would request a keyless light fixture. .......the word "key" meaning access point , "less" meaning without , .........best I got


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## Toronto Sparky (Apr 12, 2009)

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_keyless_lamp_holder&src=ansTT

And from this site in 2008 

http://www.electriciantalk.com/f2/if-keyless-one-has-key-2276/


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## TGGT (Oct 28, 2012)

That's funny because I've always wondered that, and even was thinking about it when I saw this thread title.


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## aftershockews (Dec 22, 2012)

LegacyofTroy said:


> I assume that if there's no switch , (on fixture,)and it only holds bulb , one would request a keyless light fixture. .......the word "key" meaning access point , "less" meaning without , .........best I got


We say "pull chain keyless" or "keyless".
Edit: I get a laugh when I ask a Lowe's employee where they keep the keyless fixtures.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

So I guess, technically, any fixture that doesn't have a knob switch on it is a keyless...? 









aftershockews said:


> ...Edit: I get a laugh when I ask a Lowe's employee where they keep the keyless fixtures.


 I get a laugh when I ask Lowe's employees _anything._ :whistling2:


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## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

In one of my first jobs in the field back in the mid 70s I worked for a contractor who did a lot of remodel work in an old part of town (Alameda)where there were lots of Victorian houses built in the mid to late 1800's. This was before it was trendy to own one and it was kind of a pain in the ass to have all this old non-functional stuff in them, so people were ripping out old gas lamps right and left. The contractor I worked for would throw them in the truck when he removed them to put in modern fixtures. Since it was my job to clean out the trucks at the end of the day, I was supposed to scrap those, but he let me have them and I "electrified" them by putting in sockets and drilling them for wiring, then sold them at flea markets. 

The old gas lamps had "keys" that you used to control the amount of gas and thus the light level, essentially an early dimmer. A lot of them in commercial buildings were removeable keys, I guess so that you could keep someone from changing the light level. Like these:









So it was only natural that when Edison came out with his early electric lamp sockets, he made them look the same, where the rotary switch had the same sort of key on the outside, since that is what people were used to when controlling their lamps.










But once they came up with wall mounted switches, it became redundant to have another switch on the lamp socket. So "keyless" is a socket with no "key" switch. Even if the switch is a pull chain or a push-through, it is not keyless because there is a switch of some sort.


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## LegacyofTroy (Feb 14, 2011)

Learn something new everyday..........


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## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

The mystery is solved! Thank you, JRaef. I never suspected it was a term that went THAT far back.


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## donselec (May 7, 2011)

how can it be a keyless pull chain? one or the other i would think


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## 480sparky (Sep 20, 2007)

donselec said:


> how can it be a keyless pull chain? one or the other i would think


I've seen that is the specs of some jobs.


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