Fully working bright light
First, a ScrapHappy New Year to you all!
To start the year, here is an easy ScrapHappy mend of an LED lamp which the Snail uses for various crafty activities. In fact, we have two of these lamps and, although they weren’t cheap, they are well made and very useful. They feature a ring of LEDs as well as a magnifier in the top, and will run from batteries or a mains adapter. The Snail uses the mains adapter for both – the batteries are housed in a detachable box which I may well use for something else one day (watch this space!).
This particular lamp started to be like me – a bit dim. This is a strange thing for LEDs to do as they aren’t like incandescent bulbs that have separate parts that can fail independently (so one of several filaments might break but the others would keep on shining). It probably meant that the power supply wasn’t doing what it was supposed to, so I started there. A quick check with my rusty voltmeter told me the truth – the supply was only half decent. It was producing a little over 3 volts rather than 6 volts to be precise.
Half the supply it was
In the last 20 years, I reckon every household has probably had about a million* mains power supplies that have long since become pointless because the device they were supposed to power has broken. Many have (shamefully) been put in landfill, but many reside to this day in old boxes at the backs of cupboards/wardrobes/sheds. Mine reside in my office/workshop/studio, liberally scattered across shelves/boxes/drawers.
Could I find one that was suitable?
Could I find one that was suitable? – SPOILER ALERT!
Yay! I could! This is the supply from an old set-top box, for receiving the Freeview digital signals (for my non-UK reader, Freeview is the UK’s contribution to the vast thousands of utterly unwatchable TV channels around the globe). We stopped using the box it powered about ten or so years ago but *I KNEW* it was worth keeping.
Of course, it didn’t have the right bit on the end of the wire so I had to chop the end of the defunct power supply and solder it onto the “new” supply. Once done, voila! LEDs that are properly bright. And perhaps a hint of a smile in the magnifier too? Perhaps…
One happy lamp
oOo
* I checked with Twitter – it is a million.
writinghouse 
Thanks for sharing your last rescue action! We also have one such in the house.
It’s a pity that all stuff we acquire come with a gazillion parts, half of which are never re/used. I wish we would be short of resources so less crap would be produced and shipped
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I have a feeling that within a decade, we will have run short of some of the exotic materials found inside every bit of electronics, even humble power supplies like this one. Then the scramble will be on to extract them from things like this – it may prove worth hanging onto them, and that’s what i tell myself as another one gets put in a box in the attic! 🙂
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So you’re investing? Nice one
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Investing. Hoarding. Tripping over old power supplies. All these things… 🙂
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I join in spirit
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We too have a pair of these for armchair reading and handwork, plus another in the sewing room which doubles as photographic lighting – it’s a clean white light, and very effective. Now I know what needs to be done if any of them ever start to go dim. But first I will need to get a soldering iron, some solder…. Well scrapped, that man.
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I am wondering how many of these lamps end up at the tip because the power supply has failed, and whether their appearance at said tip could ever coincide with my visits… they are really nice lamps, and the light is whiter than the circular fluorescent light I have for the work bench.
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You light up my life!
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Primarily because I’m blushing!
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I’m very pleased to see a reason for me to continue to keep all those in the large cable box in the loft. Nice job, and thanks.
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🙂
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Oh, good scrapping! I’m sure you’re getting good use out of those re-brightened lamps these days!
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Indeed! The two lamps we have like this are really handy as they have their own stands so can be drafted in to almost anywhere. A bit of pretend sunshine is always welcome! 🙂
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