Google Lamp

This is a DIY handcrafted Google Lamp that is inspired from the famous logo of GOOGLE favicon capital 'G'. This lamp glows at night and it is powered by 12v COB LEDs. This is a table lamp as well a night lamp too.

This lamp is totally handmade and used available tools and materials to build.

HISTORY

The Google logo appears in numerous settings to identify the search engine company. Google has used several logos over its history, with the first logo created by Sergey Brin using GIMP.

In 1998, Larry Page created a computerized version of the Google letters using the free graphics program GIMP. The typeface was changed and an exclamation mark was added mimicking the Yahoo! logo.

"There were a lot of different color iterations", says Ruth Kedar, the graphic designer who developed the now-famous logo.

Google's favicon from May 1999, to May 2008, was a blue, uppercase "G" on white background. It was accompanied by a border with a red, blue, and a green side. On May 2008, a new favicon was launched. It showed a lowercase "g" from Google, colored in blue against a white background. Again a new favicon was launched on January 2009. It included a left-aligned white "g" with background areas colored in red, green, blue and yellow, with the top, bottom, and left edges of the "g" cropped. The favicon used from August 2012, to August 2015, showed the small letter "g" in white, centered on a solid light blue background.

As of September 2015, Google's favicon shows a capital letter "G", in the tailor-made font for the new logo, with segments colored red, yellow, green, and blue.

Let's see the making now.

Supplies

Below are the mentioned Tools & Materials that I used to make this masterpiece, also you can choose an alternate according to your place and availability,

TOOLS

Jigsaw (+ circle cutter)
Files
Ruler
Compass
Marker/Pencil
Screw-driver
Hot air gun
Sandpaper
Soldering iron (+ flux)
Hacksaw
Cutter
Scissor
Plier/Nipper
Clamps
Engrever/drill

MATERIALS

Mdf board
Acrylic sheet
plastic sheet
Superglue
PVC sheet
Paper tape

OTHER

White wood primer + brush
Spray paints (red + green + blue + yellow + white)
12v adapter
2x Screws
Wires (red + black + white)
12v COB LEDs (red + green + blue + yellow)

Planning

First here I take a Google favicon and took the measurements of all the sides and angles. Also I found out the color codes that are used in the icon, but unfortunately I did not found the exact colors in the market.

So, I'm going with the colors that are nearly matching the original colors, such as Orange Red, light Green, lime Yellow, Blue and White.

Cutting the Circles

Here, I first took a MDF board as a base board, where all the stuffs are going to held. Then I made the measurement and cut out the circle with the help of Jigsaw and circle cutter.

Next, I searched for a plastic sheet or a light diffuser sheet but couldn't find one, so I took a piece of plastic bucket cover as a top diffuser plate and cut out a circle of same diameter (120mm).

Carving Out the Letter 'g'

Like before I marked the 'G' shape and cut out both the MDF and Plastic pieces out of of them with my Jigsaw and circle cutter.

Making Light Diffusers

This is a 3D letter so here we need to raise the height of the letter. For this I used 1mm Acrylic sheet, I cut out several pieces of same width to cover the letter 'G' sideways.

Bending the Acrylic Pieces

Next, I need to bend the acrylic pieces and give the exact same shape and size so that it gets fitted on the 'G' letter. Here I used hot air gun to make the bending and soldering iron rod to make sharp bends.

Now, all the pieces are bent and cut according to the size and shape and ready to attach.

Making the Stand

Here, I used small MDF and wood pieces and cut it as shown in the picture to make a small stand that will be just below the letter 'G' and will the screwed in at the back.

Drill Holes for Attaching

Next, I drilled few holes in the stand as well in the letter 'G' so that screws can be fixed and wires can be inserted through them.

Coloring

In this step, I first applied some white wood primer to back of the letter 'G' and to the stand and finally applied White spray paint to them as final coating.

Next, for the other acrylic pieces I applied different colored spray paints directly on them and kept for drying.

I applied 2 coats of the colors, remember to apply the colors evenly to get a smooth surface finish upon lighting.

Colored Pieces

After the color dried, here are the final pieces that re ready to fix with the base. Before that I will first attach the LEDs now.

Install the LEDs

Here, I used 12v COB LEDs of four different colors. As the LEDs were too big to install, so I removed the LED covering and install them right onto the letter 'G' and fix them with superglue.

Here I used 3x red, 3x green, 3x blue and 1x yellow color LEDs.

Soldering

Next, I soldered the LEDs together with black and red wires and inserted a white colored wire to power the LEDs with 12v.

Attach the Acrylic Diffuser

As a 3D letter, here I fixed all the acrylic pieces to the desired position with superglue.

Dividers

Next, I made some rectangle pieces with PVC sheet as some dividers, to install in between the colored chambers so that no other color lights can get pass to the other chambers.

Attaching the Stand

Next, I inserted the wires through the stand and fixed the stand to the back of our 'G' letter and screwed them. Then I attached a 12v DC female power connector to it.