New Concepts in Contemporary Lighting

Thanks to recent advancements in LED lamps, it is possible to create effective light fixtures that only use a tenth of the energy consumption of the old incandescent bulbs with corresponding reductions in heat emissions and size. I have refitted some existing fixtures  at Flippist World Headquarters and even built a couple of new ones from scratch, as shown here. NOTE: these are not “UL approved” and this is not a “how to” article for DIYers. I suspect that when this house is sold they will be replaced with the original fixtures (which I have saved.)

We have a three-season (in chilly Minnesota it is actually a 2 1/2 season) porch that was a bit of a wreck when we moved in 34 years ago. It had warped and drafty windows, a broken door, peeling paint and was used by the previous occupants as a place to store their junk. The only light was a bare bulb in a ceramic socket. We’ve fixed it up over the years, now it is a wonderful area to have coffee in the mornings, take dinner in the late afternoon, and now, with the addition of this light fixture (with a dimmer), a cozy place to spend an idle evening in conversation:

It is composed of 14 3-watt LEDs, giving the rough equivalent output of a 400 watt tungsten lamp. This much illumination allows the light to be filtered through onion-skin bond paper, as well as bouncing off the wooden ceiling. Dimmers and LEDs, even if they are designed to work together, aren’t always as smooth as one would like so I added a resistor (4KΩ 50 watt heat-sunk, don't try this at home) to even out the taper and allow the lamps to be dialed down without flickering.

A second fixture, a hall light, is even more fanciful in its execution:

The 8 3-watt lamps are nestled behind industrial dichoric glass filters—Red, Green, Blue, Cyan—which give a colorful light quality to what had been a nondescript landing. It also has “spill” from the surrounding wall to broaden the glow. No dimmer on this one, the idea of a light on a stairwell is to make it seen, not to create an atmosphere.