How to make an "eternal" do-it-yourself desk lamp

Suddenly I discovered that recently, good table lamps are starting to disappear from stores. Everywhere now basically only fixtures with CFL 9/11 W are now. I think that the light from such bulbs is too small to work with various small details and just comfortable reading, not to mention writing.

In my opinion, best of all, a lamp with a diffuse reflector of sufficient size for an incandescent lamp with a power of 75-100 W copes with the functions of a table lamp (60 watts is not enough, but if you lower the lamp low, then you can also 60 watts), but for particularly precise work (such as embroidery) this may not be enough - you have to temporarily screw 150 watts. Lamps are best used matte or, even better, dairy. Mirror reflectors give too sharp shadows. The lamp should be on a tripod, allowing you to freely adjust it in all planes.

But there are fewer such lamps on sale! And what comes across is a golem China, which, even from 60s, will crumble in six months. I had to turn on my head. I remembered about the machine fixtures that are installed on industrial equipment and all kinds of assembly tables.

Such a lamp is very similar to a table lamp, but does not have a stand or clamp for mounting on the edge of the table, but is screwed with four bolts directly onto the machine or table. Such a mount is not suitable - there is nothing to spoil the furniture. The luminaires themselves, which are produced on Vatra, are still of quite decent quality and can withstand 100 W LN without problems, while the old ones are even better (GHS, NKS, NKP 03, etc.) - almost eternal. I found in my garage a stash of a pair of such lamps made back in the USSR and decided to make a base-clamp for them. I thought - it turned out to be very simple:

1. It is necessary to cut a square plate of 85x85 mm from steel with a thickness of 4-6 mm.

2. Mark on it 4 holes located in the corners of a square 64x64 mm for fixing the lamp. Cut into them a M4 thread (3.3 mm holes) or M5 thread (4.2 mm holes). Drills and taps are sold in household stores and cost a penny.

4. Actually, we weld a corner to the plate.

5. We make a screw. You can buy a ready-made long screw and drill a screw head to install a screwdriver there from a wire with a diameter of 4 mm or a suitable nail, riveting the ends (it is convenient to deform them in powerful yews) so that it goes in the hole (it will be convenient to screw it in hard-to-reach places). You can cut the thread yourself or buy a long hairpin with the desired thread in household goods, likewise, drill a hole perpendicularly and install a knob.

7. We paint the finished design to look beautiful and the color of the base of the lamp and glue a piece of rubber or leather on the base so as not to spoil the countertop and nothing slipped.

8. It remains, in fact, to simply install a lamp on our clamp with four suitable bolts and fasten a cord with a plug to it (they are sold without a cord because they are connected to the internal wiring of the machine 24-36 V), the terminal strip should be there.

9. For use with 100-150 W lamps, it would be better to change the wiring in the lamp to heat-resistant, but you can just wrap the wires coming from the lampholder with heat-resistant tape like LETSAR or put on heat-resistant tubes (in principle, they should already be there - you just need to check this )

Beauty! I have already made about five of them (at the request of relatives and friends) - everyone is happy. Therefore, who needs good table lampI think it's worth a try, this design. Everything is done simply elementary and still survive us.

A few samples of homemade table lamps

Here is a photo I made in the country when I was sorting through junk.

Dark - NKP 03-60 004 of the 80s of release, with two ball joints and a rigid bar turning into a flexible one.The length of the rod, from memory, is about 550 mm.

Svetly - NKP 03U-60 004 of the 2000s, with a flexible rod along the entire length without hinges. The length of the rod, from memory, is about 500 mm.

The old ones are more impassable, but their rod is very well fixed, while the new ones have a worse spring. Cartridges in both ceramic, of course. The switch is on the new one at the top, which is very convenient, on the old one - on the base (it’s difficult to move upstairs, but it is possible). Both were tested with 100 W lamps - the flight was normal (initially they were marked at 60 W, but 100 Watt were exactly the same). They look condo, but compared to the fire-hazardous Chinese, these are eternal.

At the dacha, I have a machine lamp as one of the table lamps (it was removed, though not from the machine, but from the equipment rack many years ago) from the distant fifties. He still has a rack that is not flexible but on a hinge of two knees, plus ball joints at the base and on the head. I just washed it from the long-term dirt and made the base of a fiftieth board with a toggle switch and a neon MN-3. It still works; in my opinion, it is completely indestructible. On these fixtures, toggle switches break faster than they themselves :-).

Here are photos of a table lamp with a holder made this year:

The nut is additionally welded to the corner, as practice has shown, is not needed. Simply cut the threads there. This lamp is fixed with M6 studs, but since it is rather difficult to drill holes so accurately, it is better to limit yourself to M5 or even M4 - it will be easier to assemble. It is possible to make a clamp and simpler from plywood and an L-shaped bolt, but then it will not meet the strength and reliability with which these lamps are made.

Regards, SanTix