As some of you might know, I’ve been working on a project for a little while now. I’ve been trying to make a small, decorative, USB powered, glass desk light.
Given my hollow skills are often up one day and outright missing on others, this was no small feat for me. Not to mention, I don’t know anything about wiring up to a USB cord.
But, as I’m fond of saying, just because I don’t know how isn’t cause to stop me. For my stubbornness, I was finally rewarded.
I’d like to say now, this is the first one I’ve made. There’s no on/off switch, it’s more delicately balanced than I intended, and I’m not super thrilled with the connection from the neck to the foot of the lamp, but in my defense, I had to redo that [CENSORED] connection 3 times, each time requiring another trip through the kiln to anneal.
With that, I give you…the lamp.
It’s a pretty little thing, if not horribly lit in this picture. But let’s face it, the lighting in my shop isn’t the star here. This stands about 7.5″ tall by 7.5″ long.
I was going for a floral look with this piece, and I think I achieved it. I couldn’t tell you what flower it might be vaguely reminiscent of, but I assure you, no plants will be called onto the Maury Povich show for DNA testing.
This is the foot that kept popping off. I had it pop off from both sides and in between. Finally I made sure there was a good fluid attachment point on the neck, and I wound up creating a larger attachment to the foot itself. This gave me enough room to maneuver a small flame in between the two.
And finally….
The small white light I used gives enough light to find your keys if you really needed to, but it really makes a lovely night light more than anything. I love the variations in the globe from where the colored glass was more opaque in some spots. I did notice an odd flicker when I had it plugged in, but I suspect this is because my laptop was running on battery at the time and I was seeing fluctuations in the power stream out. It makes me fear for my peripherals.
But, I finally got it done. Now on to the next one.
I’m a bit ADD sometimes, and every year it seems I find something new and different to try. This very well might be this year’s item of interest.
For those of you I let in on my secret project, thank you for the kind words of encouragement, they were much appreciated in my…darkest hours. Get it? Ha!
UPDATE: I may have to revisit the use of resistors; my light’s dimmed. I’m annoyed though because I should be getting 5v downstream, and the light I pulled my light out of uses 3 1.5v button cells. This is how we learn I suppose.
UPDATE part 2: I blew the other LED, but after a few hours fiddling about with some magic ceramics, it seems I’ve replaced it and it’s holding it’s brightness. Woohoo!













