Simple LED Table Lamp From an Old Lamp (no Soldering)

In short, lost power at the house and wished I had a lamp that I could power with a USB charger that creates a lot of light and not just a beam like a flashlight. With some simple supplies from amazon and an old lamp, I created the following project as a backup lamp that also looks normal with my décor so I don't have to hide it in a closet when not in use. This can be done with just about any 120v E26 base lamp in your house, but keep in mind that once its converted to USB it will not power a normal 120v light bulb.

1. Wire cutters/strippers
2. Screw Driver
3. knife
4. Ohm meter that can do continuity check
5. 5 volt light bulb with E26 base (can be found on Amazon here)
6. Old USB cable (found in your junk drawer or here on Amazon)
7. Doner lamp of your choice
8. smallest wire nuts you can find, the grey or blue ones are the best for this

Remove any loose items and remove the old light bulb.

Cut the wire going out to the regular 120v plug.

Separate the wires, you can use the knife in the middle to start the separation and then pull them apart a bit at the bottom so you have two distinct wires.

Unsheathe both wires leaving about a half an inch of bare wire.

Cut the small end off your USB cable.

Unsheathe the outer USB cover. Be careful not to cut or unsheathe the internal wires. In most cases the internal wires will be covered with a kind of tin foil.

Remove the outer tin foil. Not all USB wires are the same, you may only find two wires in the cable (red and black) or you may find 4 (red, black, green and white).

If you find 4 wires, you can remove the green and white wires, they will not be needed for this project.

Unsheathe the black and red wires, try and give about the same amount of bare wire as you left on the lamp, about half an inch.

Put your meter into continuity mode, we need to find the wire on the lamp that is attached to the center connector on the light bulb. Using the probes, put one on the center contact in the lamp and with the other touch one of the wires, if the meter reacts, this is the center wire and will be tied to the red wire of the USB cable, if the meter does not react, touch the other wire just to be sure, take note of the wire that reacts.

Feed the USB wire through the hole at the base of the lamp or wherever the old wire was passing through to get into the lamp.

Using wire nuts, Put the red wire with the wire that goes to the center contact (the one that had continuity) on the lamp and twist on the wire nut. Do the same for the other wire and the black wire. Once the wire nuts are on you can wrap them with electrical tape (not shown). Use the smallest wire nuts you can find, mine were probably a little to big for this project, but worked for the writing of this tutorial.

Plug it in and give it a test!! You can also use this lamp with a regular USB charger plugged into a 120v outlet. Be sure the charger puts out at least 2 amps as the light bulb draws about 1.4 amps. Now if the power goes out, just swap over to a USB battery charger and enjoy plenty of light while the power is out.