The original idea for the lighted magnifier was for inspection and reading small print on tools, which are generally done in a fixed location. The intended use was for continuous periods of work that made battery operation an issue. Mainly, the initial thinking was to turn it on and leave it on for the duration of a project. So, with it in hand and in use, I found in a short time it was being used for much more than its original intent. The magnifier lens in its unlit state is excellent in capturing ambient light, so I had it in mind that one lighted unit for the very tight and difficult work was great, with an unlit version for all other tasks. Problem is, the lighted unit provides over 1,780 FC on the target, transmitting over 700 FC to the eye at 4″. The unlit version produces no more than ambient levels, and if your head shades the ambient light, that is cut considerably. So, when comparing the two in actual use, the lighted version simply knocks the stuffing out of the unlit one. This meant I needed to cut the umbilical and create a battery powered version.
Adding a battery power pack to the Magnifier was found to be a desirable addition after finding the lighted unit so useful.
A little industrial chique tribute to 2015 Year of Light.
Actually, this started as a rough lab test experiment applying thermal transfer pipes (copper pipes filled with water) to move heat from an LED platform to a simple back plane surface. The experiment included bending the pipes, soldering them using silver bearing solder, and operating the system at various angles to see the effect these had on performance. Somewhere along the line, an idea formed of making this into a wall piece, creating an industrial-chic, which led to adding a cut down reflector, and using the SLA printer to create an industrial tech representation of a flame rising from the reflector. The square cut in the diffuser aligns with the connected graphic on the back plane, and the stenciled number 15 simply represents the year.
The graphic alignment with the diffuser negative space connects the back-plane to the foremost diffuser component.
The driver is housed in the FDM printed housing below the light source on the back plane, with a dimmer. Total power to the source is 19W, while the LED is 95CRI 3000K. Note that the overly red hue to the background, and slight magenta appearance of the white graphics are all issues with the camera dealing with the red-enhanced LED source, which creates high CRI, with a 90 R9 value, but in reality is a distortion of spectral power that the human eye does not readily see – but mid-range camera image sensor algorithms cannot accommodate.
The diffuser is intended to interpret a flame, or gas light sock.
The thermal pipes move 19W of energy from the LED platform to the back-plane – which is where the whole project started. Cutting the back half of the reflector out provides light to the wall and plate surface.
I found this little light on ebay at a lunch money price, so couldn’t resist. It started life as a Hamilton Industries (Chicago) lamp model 60, made in Japan in the early 1960’s. It used a 12V magnetic transformer and a resister to provide a dual level light control of its 20W signal lamp. The amount of light it put out was barely visible in the presence of any ambient light. Meanwhile, I had a cute little key-chain wireless remote controller for less than $14 from LED Supply that delivers PWM dimming and on-off control of 12VDC LED loads. I stripped the guts out of their kit and put them inside the base of the fixture. The little lighting head was about the right size for a 12V MR16 lamp, so rather than re-invent that wheel, I just retrofitted the head to take a bi-pin socket and planned to use a retrofit MR16 lamp to deliver the light I wanted. That ended up more of an issue than I expected. First, after testing of all the LED MR’s I had around, only one brand would operate and dim effectively when run on DC power. The rest were poor dimming on AC power, but on DC they were miserable. On the LED Supply remote dimming module, they were useless. The lamp I ended up with was a Philips Enduraled product, and it will dim down to around 10%.
The remote control acts as a panel control when nested in the base, and as a remote control with cute antenna when separated.
The remote control is a bit of fun, as it has an antenna that works well with the antenna arm on the fixture, so they seemed a great match. I printed a holder for the face of the power supply (now control) enclosure at the base of the fixture to hold the remote, which makes it a simple panel controller when the remote feature is not needed. When the light is used to wash a wall or light art or some other function besides a desk lamp, the remote can be removed and control the fixture from across the room. The power supply is a simple 12VDC wall wart, while the base houses only the remote control electronics now.
The base now incorporates the remote in a recessed compartment.
The base looked in need of a bit of dressing up, so I printed a retro-turbo trim ring to surround the remote control mount on the SLA printer and painted it with VHT fake chrome to give it a sand-cast aluminum look. I also printed the same part on the FDM printer for comparison. I’m throwing in two images of the raw prints to show the difference in surface quality one gets between these machines. Obviously, for parts that include details that will be hard to sand and fill, the SLA process is superior. For parts that need to be strong and can be easily finished, the FDM is the go-to tool.
The lighting head uses an LED MR16 lamp for its optic and driver components
So, this little weak black egg ebay find has been transformed from a barely functional desk lamp novelty, to a bright, useful, remote controllable, dimmable, black egg turbo trimmed LED light novelty. I’m a fan of the 50’s and 60’s design aesthetic, so this one felt right and was fun to put together.
The turbo fins look very rocket-man when the egg is closed up
The remote facilitates using the light as a wall accent, or ambient uplight, controlled from elsewhere in the roomWith the remote out, the light can remain on, lighting the turbo louver as a night lightThe ebay purchaseThe cord was ugly and the closed appearance rather out of alignment and boringWhile FDM 3D printed parts (top_ are strong and easily finished, in fineer detail work, they lack fidelity and smoothness. The SLA (bottom) part is much smoother, requiring less finish work, but are less durable. In this case, the FDM is printed at its finest setting, the SLA at its coursest, so the contrast here is greater when the SLA is pressed to maximize reolution. Both took 2.5 hours to print.
The Cure Cube is used for curing SLA 3D Prints created on the Form Labs 1+ printer. Exposing SLA prints to 405nm “UV” light increases strength and creates a harder surface for final finishing.
While not particularly visible to everyone in the SSL universe, over the past few years one area of interest in LED product development for me has been in use of 405nm LED light sources to cure various plastics materials. The advantages are lower power requirements and reduced overall heat in the cure zone over conventional fluorescent or HID light sources. This has been of particular interest in curing fiberglass resins manufactured by Sunrez. The typical demand is for between 200 and 1,000 µW/CM² at 400-405nm wavelength. The use of LEDs allows us to generate exactly that without the waste of visible light, and longer wavelength power the resins are not reacting to. In one project, we were able to replace a 1,500W HID light source with a 120W LED light system that produced faster cure times with less than 10% of the total power, and virtually no heat added to the heat generated by the resin’s exothermic reaction to the curing initiator. Since then, we’ve built 405nm light cure fixtures ranging from 1,200W to 25W.
In this case, I needed to cure 3D prints we generate on a Form Labs 1+ 3D SLA printer, and do so in an office environment without exposing other materials and occupants to UVA light output. The material used in the print process is acrylic based, with chemistry that is photo-reactive to 405nm. The actual prints are made using a UV laser source. When the part is removed from the printer it is washed in alcohol (91% IPA), rested for a few hours to dry the alcohol off, then placed in this cure cube for an hour or more, depending on the thickness of the final component. The end result is a hard first surface for finish sanding or painting, if necessary, and a more rigid part as a whole (less flexible).
The cube is simple, with vent reliefs top and bottom to encourage ariflow. The flush switch on the top cover was created using 3D printing processes for the slider and body, as well as top and bottom cover.
The cube utilizes a simple aluminum housing, with FDM 3D printed top and bottom covers. The top cover houses a single Recom 500mA driver, slide switch and wiring terminal block on a Tasca LED driver circuit board.
5mm 450nm LEDs with a FWHM distribution of 60º, 25 per side and top (125 total), operating at 20mA each, mounted to custom circuit boards sourced at Express PCB. Each board connects the LEDs in parallel, while the boards are connected in series, resulting in a 500mA, 15.4V circuit, totaling 7.7W. The boards and internal exposed surfaces inside the box were then covered with White Optics 98 matte material to increase total light energy and diffuse The light energy at 405nm is roughly 600 µW/CM².
The bottom surface includes a glass plate where the product sits in order to make any possible stickiness of a part from adhering to the White Optic material below.
The interior of the cube is covered with White Optics 98 material for optimizing light energy re-cycling.
The housing was powder coated matte black polyester to make clean up easy and the box look nice. The overall interior dimensions of the box are 1″ larger than the total build volume capacity of the printer itself (5 x 5 x 6.5), as any over-sizing is unnecessary. This produces an optimal match between the location of the LED sources and any part the printer can produce.
The Cube is powered by a remote plug mounted 24VDC power converter.
The operation of the box is simple enough. The box is lifted up, the part is set on the base, the box is set over the part, and the light is turned on by sliding the switch to the on position.
Simple and compact is the order of desktop manufacturing, and this fits that model perfectly.
A look into the box lighted up and ready to accept parts.
Testing so far has shown the cube can cure raw resin from liquid to fully hardened in less than an hour, and strengthens prints in that time or less. The heat generated from this arrangement is so small, there is no chance of any part being warped or affected by the process, other than the desired results of becoming stronger.
For parts to be left unfinished, that are desired to be used over extended periods, we coat the finished parts in either acrylic or polyurethane UV inhibiting clear coat, gloss or matte. This stops ambient room light or daylight exposure from making the parts brittle over time. I am building a second copy of this cube for completing extended testing of samples of the materials we are using to verify clear coat effectiveness, behavior of the print material over long exposure periods, and the behavior of these low cost LEDs over time. A commercial version of this cube could be made using more robust LEDs, but the costs would be significantly higher as well. In the current configuration, the LEDs only cost $0.60 each, so should they last a couple of years in use, replacement of the populated boards is a simple task, while the cost of higher power LEDs would have increased the cost of the entire end-product by as much as three times.
There is also an additional version of this same approach in using Red/Blue light sources for use in plant seedling starts. We’ve found tests with common rye and barley grasses, the time from germination to hearty growth ready for planting is accelerated significantly. Using an enclosure like this allows the plants to be exposed to intense light for extended periods of time (18 hours or more) without polluting the surrounding environment with the ugly light, just as the enclosed cube protects room occupants from exposure the the UVA light. In either case, the cube can be used in any room environment comfortably and safely.
So this gets us off the ground and is D1 of 52 in the series. As I’ve noted at the start, this is an exercise in making progress, and putting SSL to work. This is not a particularly exciting product in and of itself, but it is one that will be used regularly, which more than makes up for its lack of marketing sizzle for the masses – at least in my book.
I thought a lot about what to focus on in 2012 for this series, and decided that I had plenty to share from regular activities of Lumenique, LLC and Tasca. So, the plan is to select something completed in each of the 12 months of 2012 and feature them here. This will generally be products or projects completed for customers, but may also include a report on research work in process, when it adds value.
January Feature – TASCA Renovar Floor Lamp
This is a refitting of a Dazor table lamp, applying the TASCA lighting head, and adding an extension stand to convert a desk lamp to a floor lamp. The product was commissioned by a customer who provided the table lamp, purchased used. From the GSA and other government markings present on the original, it was obviously from a government facility. The table lamp made by Dazor has been around since the late 1930’s, where the fluorescent lamp version graced the GE display at the Worlds Fair.
For more details on this project, check out the summary and full technical specs at Lumenique 12 in 12 for 2012 – January.
For additional details on how you might procure a similar product from one of your own favorites, visit TASCA.
Also, as an update, the Lumenique Product Center now accepts all major credit cards, making your purchase experience easy and secure.
Stay tuned for additional news and updates on the 12 n 12 for 2012 review, and other interesting SSL information.
ArchLED’11 will be marked as the official coming out for Tasca, my work lighting product offering. We presented examples of the base Uno line, as well as several Renovar and one Accent light. If you are wondering what these are, and are curious to learn more, you can visit the Tasca web site now. The sitre is fully populated with pictures and a specification download at:
We have also put several products up on the Lumenique Product Center for direct purcahse. These are semi-pre-configured products with popular options. You can choose one or dozens, we don’t mind.
While I do not intend to make this blog a commercial site promoting products and pitching our offerings, I do need to make a living, so there will be occasional updates to share where we are and what we are doing in this regard. This is how we pay for the fun side of being in the business, and afford the time to invest and share with others information on solid-state lighting.
A Little More on Tasca
Tasca is primarily focused on the work environment. Whether this is a machine operation, an assembly work station, an inspection station, or administration workplace, my intent is to offer the most effective light for enhancing visual performance with a durable product. I’ve invested decades experimenting with task lighting. My personal approach has been to lower ambient surrounding light levels to the minimum required to support the low acuity activities in the space, supplemented by localized task lighting to enhance visual performance in critical work areas. I have applied this in lighting designs over the last 30 years to reduce energy consumption, and live under it on a daily basis. In other words, I am passionate about this approach and believe it is a superior approach to achieve high visual performance. I strongly believe we are over-lighting our work spaces to some compromised light level, which is too high for ambient requirements and too low for effective task performance.
Over the last few years, the idea of creating a work light for hard service environments, bringing the advantages of SSL technology to work spaces that require high visual performance to support safe, accurate, and efficient work tasks. For over a year now I have been investing considerable time building a product I feel satisfies the demands of work environments, with an efficient product that will survive harsh environments. Tasca is the product of this effort, and just the beginning of a larger effort to produce desirable performance SSL lighting products for niche work space demands. We’ve already provided customized versions of Tasca for UV curing applications, and will be releasing specialty products, such as a 98CRI sourced heads for color critical inspection (like printing presses, millwork, textile and paint inspection), as well as a unique welding light that will bring welders vision of their welding field that has never been possible before.
Tasca is also founded on the concept of sustainability from durable products that are recycled either by dismantling, rebuilding, or re-purposing at the end of service life, not just thrown away. Unlike products that are filled with potting materials and irreversible assembly techniques that make recycling too expensive to be practical, Tasca fixtures are heavy duty assemblies designed to be reworked, rebuilt, or dismantled easily for recycling of materials content, separate of the electronics components that must go through a separate recycling channel. This includes the use of glass for the lens cover, which can survive decades of use, or be recycled easily through existing waste management channels economically. The Renovar and Accent line take all of this one step further by harvesting old task lights for their arms, refinishing the devices, recycling the old lighting heads, and converting them to Tasca lights by adapting our lighting heads, before a complete refinish and refurbishing.We will also refit your existing task lights, bringing old favorites back to life by bringing them up to date, or through Accent, create a custom design to suit your specific taste.
This is just the start of a great deal more to come. Sort of pulling the plug out of a dyke and letting things flow. This is an exciting niche opportunity for me, where I can add value through design integration assistance, and provide customization to suit unique customer needs. Unlike imports which must be marketed in large batches of off-shelf products to move production inventories – Tasca is made here in the USA, to order, to meet individual customer needs – even if that means building something completely new and unique that has a total customer market of one.
A little gadget for looking at small things in the shop
Okay, so I couldn’t resist. When I posted designs 49 and 50 last week, I received a note from Kevin Dowling (of CK fame), who also has an old South Bend lathe. He made a comment about a technique called “cloudy day” lighting, where shadows and highlights are removed in a viewing chamber for seeing detail on specular materials. The concept was that this might work as an aide for reading drill bits, which often have very small letters, laser etched on the cylindrical surface. I was intrigued, so created this small gadget.
This is a small chamber with concealed LEDs (Cree XRE’s) at the sides behind shields. The interior is lined with White Optics material to produce indirect light around the subject. It is powered by a 9V battery, with a simple momentary pushbutton switch. It will accept objects up to 3/4″ in diameter. To enhance vision I have added a 1.5X lens at the view window. The combination of bright indirect light and optical enlargement makes reading small drill bits, mill tools, and markings on the side of thin wires significantly easier. I have also found it works very well in viewing the condition of lathe cutting tools, which often look and feel sharp, but aren’t. Looking at them in this viewer reveals flaws impossible to see otherwise. This can also be used to thread needles, read a thermometer of a sick kid, and other surfaces that will fit through the port.
While this is not a perfect cloudy day viewing system, as it does not completely eliminate the dark stripe one sees on cylindrical surfaces due to the opening window, the fault is minor, and does not detract from the significant improvement it offers overall. It also costs a LOT less.
Well, here we are at the end of the year, the last days of the last week. Design 52 is the official conclusion of the 2010 challenge, and is another task and work light. This design is a work in process I have been toying with all year in use of color and white LEDs to produce color and white light, using simple controls. The first effort has been in finding the right mix of LEDs to produce the best result. This represents one version I have found works very well – specifically the GE Vio 830 white LED with two Lamina RGB Atlas light engines. This produces a wide range of white values with CRI greater than 80, and as high as 92.
The light head includes an optical mixing chamber lined with White Optics material and a fine prismatic diffuser lens. Thermal management is through the use of a Nuventix Synjet PAR20 cooler/heatsink, allowing the LEDs to be run up to the total of 24 watts without an issue of over heating.
The challenge so far has been LED selection, the next is driver design. This design is a step forward in that it is designed to use the Verde Designs 4 channel programmable current driver package. This driver can be controlled with 0-5V, 0-10V, and DMX, which will facilitate incorporation of a controls system that will add greater fidelity to color selection, as well as eventually including a feedback loop to make corrections as things heat and cool during operation.
So who cares about color in task lighting?
Well, the inspiration came when working on a wiring harness for a motorcycle project. There were more than 40 color combinations in the harness, including stripes and solids. Some of these combinations were giving me fits. For example, the faded old black wires, brown wires, and dark purple wires all looked the same to me. As an experiment, I threw together a simple RGB light and pointed it at the harness. With a little fussing around, I found a color combination that made the wire colors jump, no more mixed wires.
Since then, I have found instances where adjusting the CCT of white, or amplifying one color or another came in very handy for either matching colors, seeing color, or simply improving task visibility. This has led to the product you see here.
I also have a theory that for men with color blindness, the ability to either amp up or tune out green and/or red balance in light will be useful in aiding differentiation of reds and greens in tasks where this is important – like electronic wiring, or other color tasks where red and green differentiation is difficult, but important to performance.
So, this is the conclusion of 52 in 52. It’s been quite a year. The project did what I had hoped in getting me deeper into the technology, while enforcing constant state of design exploration. While I do not plan to attempt to repeat this in 2011, there will be new designs presented here, so please drop in and take a look now and again.
Thanks to everyone who has been following along and offering support and encouragement.
While the task light for lathe work (D49) is somewhat limited in its flexibility in head location, for mill machine work, and a task light that can serve for both machine light and adjacent welding table, I needed more movement. In this design I recruited the arm component from a high end drafting light that once held a quartz halogen head that had burned me and gave me sunburns on more than a few occasions – so found itself on a shelf in the basement.
The parallel arm configuration and swivels/tilts at the base and head allows me to put light whever I need it. The head, like D49, uses the Helieon module with customized optics. Note that in both this and in D49, I prefer a single light source over lumps of multiple LEDs. In very tight task work, the light source is often brought down very close in. Multiple LEDs present too much noise in terms of multiple shadows and dots reflected on surfaces to be tolerable. I like a single, large area bright source, as this is easily recognized by the eye, and softens the shadow edges as the light source scale, even when located near reflective tasks.
Another problem addressed here is the potential for killing electronics. Since the welding table is the ground plane for a TiG and MiG welder, I insulated the arm of the task light from the table, and located the driver package at the top of the arm, as far away from any potential EMI as it can get. Of course, there are going to be instances where the light is located near the welding action, so there is a ground wire in the cord connected to the arm, which should help. However, only time will tell of this strategy will work long term, which is why this lamp was put in service right away… today… as soon as it was completed.
And, yes, the shop is a total mess right now. Between closing the 52 in 52 project, trying to get a motorcycle project prepared for dismantling and paint, repairing a crashed Corvette, and the generally frigid weather coming down on us like a pile of ice blocks… I just got behind on the tidiness thing… something that will be resolved very soon, as I’m sick of looking for tools and stuff buried in the mess.
Tasca is also founded on the concept of sustainability from durable products that are recycled either by dismantling, rebuilding, or re-purposing at the end of service life, not just thrown away. Unlike products that are filled with potting materials and irreversible assembly techniques that make recycling too expensive to be practical, Tasca fixtures are heavy duty assemblies designed to be reworked, rebuilt, or dismantled easily for recycling of materials content, separate of the electronics components that must go through a separate recycling channel. This includes the use of glass for the lens cover, which can survive decades of use, or be recycled easily through existing waste management channels economically. The Renovar and Accent line take all of this one step further by harvesting old task lights for their arms, refinishing the devices, recycling the old lighting heads, and converting them to Tasca lights by adapting our lighting heads, before a complete refinish and refurbishing.We will also refit your existing task lights, bringing old favorites back to life by bringing them up to date, or through Accent, create a custom design to suit your specific taste.
