LED Desk Lamp

Useful LED Desk Lamp made from re-purposed flashlight, plumbing parts and 5 volt adapter produces excellent light for doing fine detail work.

Obtain piece of chromed water supply line and bend into shape desired. Clean inside of one end with sandpaper or steel wool and tin with plumbing solder.

After obtaining chromed pan drill hole which should be slightly larger than chromed water supply line diameter. This hole should be drilled on side opposite from cutout.

Take piece of circuitboard material and drill hole in it larger than diameter of chrome water supply tube.

Solder end of supply line and circuit board together with plumbing solder after liberally applying flux to board and inside of supply line. Apply hot melt glue over soldered connection.

After pushing new neck of LED Lamp through hole in base of lamp, glue circuit board to inside bottom of lamp base with hot melt glue and clamp together until cool.

Base and neck of lamp should form strong bond and should look like this.

Mini flashlight should have bottom and battery case removed and using tubing cutter, should be cut approximately half way down.

The part of the flashlight with the LED's should be taken and a hole should be drilled in the side which is a couple of drill sizes larger than the outside diameter of the lamp neck. Save switch part for later.

Wrap a piece of thin carboard around end of neck to provide electrical insulation between LED head and neck of lamp.

Drill smaller hole in other side of LED lamp head about the same level as the other hole. In this hole you will mount a nut and machine screw to which the negative power lead will be attached.

LED head will have the negative power lead attached to the machine screw and nut and the positive lead will be attached to the spring in the middle of the green circuit board.

This metal jar was an empty cosmetic cream container which I re-purposed because of it's shape and nice silvery finish. A notch was cut out of the rim and finished with a small file. The notch was two times wider than the diameter of the lamp neck.

The finished jar lid should look like this after being finished with the file.

After putting insulating cardboard spacer around neck and slipping assembly through previously drilled hole in LED head, secure with a dab of hot melt glue. Wires can be around 15 AWG and make sure they are long enough. The negative is attached to machine screw and the positive is soldered to the spring in the middle of the circuit board as shown in picture. If you have access to a continuity tester or ohmmeter, check to see that there is no electrical continuity between the LED head body and the rest of the lamp body.

The wires should be pushed through the neck of the lamp and come out of the bottom like this.

The jar lid should be glued to the LED head and lamp neck like this with hot melt glue.

The bottom of the cosmetic jar should have a pilot hole drilled in it and an electrician's slug cutter should be used to make a large hole. The hole should be slightly larger than the diameter of the flashlight.

Bottom of cosmetic jar has switch portion of flashlight mounted on it and because the lower part of the flashlight has a threaded bottom, a bolt was found to fit it. After tightening, the whole assembly was fastened in place with two machine screws with nuts.

After switch assembly is mounted in place, two holes are drilled through either end of cosmetic jar base and two machine screws with nuts hold it in place.

Then drill a hole in middle of board approximately 1/4 inch in diameter.

Copper board should be shined up with very fine steel wool 0000 grade preferred.

Dull side of circuit board is glued to metal base inside base of lamp with hot melt glue.

Positive lead from adapter is soldered to body of switch assembly. Check with Ohmmeter or continuity tester that this switch when actuated, makes and breaks the circuit. A 7 to 10 ohm, 2 watt, voltage dropping resistor is then put in series with the incoming positive supply from the adapter and soldered to the other side of the switch assembly. The negative supply from the adapter is directly soldered to the negative lead of the lamp head. The wires are then held in place with hot melt glue. the resistor is needed to drop the 5 volts of the adapter to the 4.5 volts required by the LED lamp head so it will not be damaged by excessive voltage. Double check all electrical connections and plug in lamp and make sure it works before proceeding to the next step.

I hot melted a piece of leatherette to the base of the lamp and when dried, used scissors to trim around base.

Plug in and enjoy your new lamp.