Lightning bolt light fitting

Wanted a track light fitting for the living room and more aluminium welding practice πŸ™‚

20x20mm square tube (ashamed to admit I bought it from B&Q) was cut into the shape of a lightning bolt.

Oh dear, the mitreing could have been better…

This is the nicest weld, there were much worse πŸ˜€ I got off to a bad start by burning several holes in it while trying to tack it together, and had to weld up the holes. I didn’t realise the tubing was only 1.6mm thick and started off with too large a tungsten and too much current. Another reminder to always test the welder settings on a scrap of the material you’re going to use… πŸ™‚

After fully welding (OK I didn’t do the inside corners πŸ™‚ )

Mount to the ceiling with M8 threaded rod

Mini PAR cans and barn doors from CPC (Should have got the black barn doors!)

Ceiling rose and yellow wire from Creative Cables

Bulbs are 12V LED MR16 from Screwfix connected to the 12V lighting system

ArGone

Finally finished the argon tank πŸ™‚

Funky light fitting 1

First in a series?

This was made from oak battens, a suspension kit for a 600x600mm LED panel, and lamp holders, cable and ceiling rose from Creative Cables.

I wanted the Edison bulb look, but needed it to run off low voltage due to my sketchy wiring. I found some 12V E27 LED bulbs on EBay, but the choice was much more limited than mains voltage ones, and they had to ship from China. The ones I bought are completely unregulated so the brightness varies drastically with voltage. See Big Clive’s teardown of the same bulb.

I ended up using them in 3 series pairs with a regulated 24V supply from a boost converter hidden in the ceiling rose.

DIY boost converter made with a LM2576HV