Part 7 Constructing Light Fixtures: Workbench Fixture

Creating a Shop Light to hang over the workbench has not been easy.

This is quite a process. I initially thought to make a fixture that would curve over half circle ends and, using a heavy piece of paper with a metalic coating, I made a prototype. I glued the pieces together and they fit nicely, but as soon as I let go of the structure, the curved part of the shade was so strong in its need to pop back into a flat position, that it tore itself from the glued ends.

New design:

I began on PhotoShop making a pattern for the long light that would have flat planes folded so they would gradually slant. This worked great when I made up a prototype in printer paper.(see above) 

Next, I made a shade from a piece of scrap-booking card stock. The same card stock I had used before with one shiny metallic side and one plain paper side.

I chose to have the shiny side on the inside of the fixture as I wanted to reflect as much light as possible down on my workbench.

  

The pattern is a bit over 3” long by 2 – 3/4” high. The ends look like uneven half hexagons.

The dark line across the center of the rectangle is the top center of the lamp.

The plan was to gently fold on each horizontal line to create a shape that would fit the ends (bottom two   pattern pieces).

I made the card stock fixture and it seemed to work pretty well.

So I transferred the pattern to some very thin metal. Now, I began to have problems. The aluminum was not rigid enough. As I would put a bend in one section, the next part of the shade would warp. Hummm... I really needed a bit heavier material, but before ordering that, I really had to see if I could make the entire fixture.

I took up the card stock fixture and installed three 3v LEDs. Then I built a housing for the wires where they come out of the top of the lamp. It looks more or less like the fixture itself.

This is really crude and was difficult to glue. 

I then slid the 3 sets of wires through a piece of shrink wrap, but did not heat it. This is meant to look like a cord that will plug into a wall. I'll need to make something to look like that.

Next, I turned the fixture over and covered the wiring inside, not that anyone will see the inside once the light fixture is hung in place. This also looks very crude, but this is a trial fixture.

My current job is to figure out how to hang this fixture. I am picturing it hung from chains attached to something like shelf supports above. 

When I am really sure how I want it all to go together, I intend to order some thicker aluminum and make a ‘real’ fixture.

A Sticky Problem with LEDs

REPLACING A NON-FUNCTIONING LED

LEDs last so long that no one seems to have invented an easy way to replace one that ceases to work, and that does happen from time to time.

While I feel quite comfortable in taking a scene apart and replacing a wired-in LED, many dollhouse miniaturists may not feel so comfortable.

And then there is the question of what happens with a scene that is a gift? How does the recipient of that gift replace a light emitting diode?

Also, I have had my dollhouse for over 30 years. I see it lasting another 30 years (longer than I may last). How will the inheritor of my dollhouse handle the replacing of an LED that fails some year?

I am totally rewiring my dollhouse for LEDs because my tape wiring failed. This will involve some pretty unusual ways of hiding wires since every single LED gets its own wire snaking from, say the globe in the ceiling of the second floor bathroom, all the way down to beneath the dollhouse where the wire is tied in with many other wires and connected to the adapter. What do I do if one of those LEDs fails? Have recently learned that wires from LEDs can be grouped. One room or floor of a dollhouse might have several lights, say five LEDs, with all the reds soldered together and all the blacks soldered together with one red and one black which leads down to the power source.

Right now, my plan is to run my wire over the top of a faux ceiling to the nearest edge of the ceiling and then hide it with crown molding. I'll run the wire around the top of the room until I get to an outer (open side of dollhouse) edge where I can run the wiring down to the underside of the dollhouse. This I will eventually cover up with u-shaped trim which I'll need to make so it can be removed if needed.

I've found a solution for an easy change. PLUGS. http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/pin-connectors.html , the pin connector. These are fantastic and really small. They can fit above a light fixture in a false ceiling, or under crown molding. They can be tucked behind a sconce or inside a piece of furniture. They can also be the lead to a table lamp's LED.  AND (a bonus) the female part can be installed in the wall as an outlet while the wires snake down to the baseboard and, tucked behind it, follow it around to the open edge of the room.

MAKING OR FINDING LIGHT FIXTURES

The world of miniature lighting appears stuck in the 12v systems. And the solution to fitting LEDs into the 12v systems has come through Novalyte where the LEDs have been wired so as to connect into a tape or hardwire system without destroying the LED. 

This works well for a system that is otherwise working, and these lights are bright. However, if your dollhouse is set in the Victorian era, these lights are much too modern as can lights or bar lights. http://www.novalyte.com/index.php 

I have seen the Novalyte used as a hidden bar in the front of a room to light up the interior where the ceiling fixtures and other lights in the room do no produce enough light to show off exquisit details. I applaud this solution.

Evan Design has another solution seen here: a universal LED 

Another solution is the independent fixtures, each with its own 3v battery in the base. Because these are intricate and small, the amount of light (lumins) given off is low, not enough in my humble opinion, to show off beautiful detail in a scene. I am not denegrating these lights as they have their uses, but if the object is to have great and bright, natural looking light, these won't do it alone.

No one, as yet, is producing what I would like to see, a fixture with a nano LED installed. The DC wires, red and black(green) would be hanging out and available to be wired into a pin connector.

Here's one I made from an old 12v lamp. I was able to remove the non-working wiring and insert an LED in the upper globe.

It is rare to find lamps or fixtures that can be taken apart to rewire with an LED. I am hoping for someone to begin making these... someone with glass blowing and metal-forming skills (with the quality of Ray Story or Jim Pounder).

Moving On to Other LED Projects

            I apologize for the long break in this blog, but life has a way of intruding. I had some health issues (am back to full health now) and then my real life business needed extra attention.

The “Dad’s Shop” project of learning to wire for LEDs is complete except for installing the porch light and putting on the roof. I hope you all have enough information to help get through your own projects successfully.

A couple of shortcuts:

1. I used Aileen’s Tack it Over and Over, a glue which allows you to attach items in a non-permanent way. This is important because the LEDs (chips) can last a very long time (10 years), but if you are like me, you will want to replace them and keep your dollhouse or mini scene lit for much longer than that.

2. I actually did not do any soldering on my project. Instead, I slid shrink tube over one end of the connection, then twisted the wires tightly together and bent the twisted section parallel to the run of wire. Then I slid the shrink tube over the twisted wires and used a lit match to carefully heat it until it snugged up over the connection.

3. Where the shrink tubing was penetrated by the twisted wire, I sealed it with clear silicone. This works because these wires are never going to be stressed, yanked on or even moved. It also means that replacing the LEDs someday will be much easier. (I accidentally left a protruding wire which poked through the shrink tube. I'm just illustrating that all things LED are fixable.)

Building the Roombox Contents

Last year’s N.A.M.E. day project, the alcove (photo from http://name-carmelindiana.blogspot.com/2011/12/name-day-2012-october-6-7.html ) sat on my shelf for quite a while. I could not think what I wanted to do with it.

Through a series of events, I decided to use the alcove as part of a sewing room, seen here:

I wired a lamp with one of the nano chips from Evan Design. Its wires are coated with a very tiny insulation colored green and red. The green corresponds to black in DC wiring. I connected the lamp wires to the male end of a pin connector (see below): the red attached to the nano's red wire and black wire attached to the green wire of the nano, so it would eventually fit along the edge of the floor and out a hole in the bottom right back wall.

Next I needed to protect these items inside of a roombox. Time got short, so I did not take pictures as the project proceeded. Later, I deconstructed the roombox to show its parts (see below). However, after securing the box, I painted the inside and then turned it upside down to create a ceiling with holes for lights.

To do this, I cut a piece of white tag board the size of the ceiling and then punched three 1/2" holes in the tag board.

And this is the lovely thing about LED lighting--the diodes can be placed in contact with paper, plastic and other such materials without fear of them catching fire. I made ceiling fixtures from the little 'nubs' that snap plastic strawberry containers closed.

This is not a good photo, but you've all seen the corner of a container. This is a strawberry box with a snap close on each corner. You can only use the top which is rigid. The bottom half of the snap is wimpy.

Cut out the snap and trim it until it is mostly flat, but leave a lip for gluing or taping.

Cut a 1/2" hole in your tagboard (or whatever you are using for ceiling material. This is difficult and you may end up with paper fuzzies inside your circle. I do, so I tack those down using regular hardware store silicone rubber sealant.

 Poke the snap through the hole and either secure it with more silicone or masking tape on the side that will not show.

 

Now it is time to place the LED as shown in the photo. Secure the LED over the 'fixture' so it will shine through. I used 3 volt LEDs for this project and installed 3 in my sewing room ceiling.

Here is how the underside of the room's ceiling looks with all of the lights in place. You will see that the roombox is upside down and the ceiling is tipped up to show this underside.

Next (below) the ceiling is down and slid into its slot. This picture shows the wires going through the hole in the back top of the roombox.

Below, the roombox is turned right side up and this is how the ceiling looks after three lights were installed.

Lamp wiring

In order to hook up the tiffany lamp, in which I've installed one nano LED, I used a tiny plug, called a pin connector from

Evan Designs. These are tiny 6.7mm connectors. They don't look small because I've taken up a very close-up photo of them. This makes changing lights easy. Simply unplug them.

Below is a picture of the bottom right corner of the bare roombox with the female part (left photo) of the pin connector installed. I've removed the part of the floor that slides in and out for access to wiring. Then I made a tiny hole through the permanent part of the flooring to run wires. This allows me length to "plug in" the lamp when the room is finally all together and yet have the wires remain well hidden behind the right side of the alcove.

Connecting the wires to a battery

Below is a picture of the back of the roombox with all of the red wires PhotoShopped out. You only see the black wires except for the red lead that comes out of the battery holder.

You have three parts to connect: the battery pack black wire (thick wire), the switch black wires, and the black wires of the LEDs.

1. Begin by sliding a shrink tube onto one black switch wire. Hold that black wire with its shrink tube ( the one coming off of the switch) and the three black wires from the ceiling LEDs and the black wire of the lamp's pin connector. 

2. Twist all 5 of these wires together tightly. Or you can solder them together.

3. Slide the shrink tube over this connection so all bared wires are completely covered. Now hold a lit match about 1/2" beneath this connection and watch as the shrink tube snugs down over everything.

4. Slide another shrink tube over the other black switch wire. Hold this remaining black switch wire next to the black lead coming out of the battery and firmly twist the two wires together, or solder them.

5. Then slide the shrink tube in place and snug it down with the heat from a match or candle.

Next come the red wires. Again, I have photoshopped out all of the black wires except the leads from the battery box and the two coming from the switch.

1. Slide a piece of shrink tube over the red lead coming off of the battery holder. 

2. Gather together all of the other red leads and twist them together (or solder them) with the lead from the battery pack.

3. Slide the shrink tube over the twisted connection and use a match or other heat source to snug the tubing down over the connection.

ENJOY YOUR WELL LIT ROOM BOX

Here is my finished room box: