Massively Brass:
An LED Reading Lamp

Television is more popular than reading, I think, because it's difficult to get proper lighting for reading. It's also difficult to find a good position for reading. Me, I like to lie on my back or in a lounge chair, with the light coming from over my head. Also, I like the rest of the room I am in to be dark, because (so goes my conceit) the surrounding darkness frees my imagination. The efficiency of LEDs is also a important. So I built the brass reading lamp above. It uses three LEDs, and only about 10 watts, yet it is as bright at a 100-watt lamp in its cone of light. That's a view of it in the workshop.

Brass has become expensive. Joan says that's because prices of gold, silver, copper and so on are high. (A recent price on a 2.5-inch, 1/4-20 brass screw was an unbelievable $1.70!) Still, I love brass, as it's easy to machine AND it looks good. And while it's so that very little that can be called beautiful gets born out of the perineum that I call my workshop, every now and then it happens. So, naturally, I'm showing it off.

Each of the three LED "emitters" in the lamp is this size:

Even though these little babies are efficient, they still produce a lot of heat for their size, so the brass construction helps a lot. The emitter in that photo above is from Philips; the three in my new lamp are from Cree. They are rated as "warm white," effectively the same as incandescent light.

Here's a view of an earlier "cool white" Cree unit lighting up the unmade bed, in daylight:

This brass lamp can be easily aimed. It also has a brightness control on the electrical cord. It lights the page I am reading, without lighting up the rest of the room.

Another lamp I built is on a floor stand, also of brass. But these lamps can be attached to any 1/2" vertical rod, as in this rough table-top setup:

Here are two more close up views:

Bob

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation -- Wikipedia.