Last Christmas I picked up the functional part of an Ikea SOLVINDEN lamp that has failed from my parent’s garden. I was curious what caused it to fail. After charging the battery and putting it back in the lamp, nothing happened. The switch felt rather rusty when toggling. The randomness in me (or the kid) flicked the switch frantically a few more times and … boom! There came a spark of light. A few more… Continue reading
Intro Everybody knows them: solar garden lamps. They work quite well during summers, when there is a lot of sun, days are long and nights are short. But come winter nights and you barely get anything from them. So i thought, what would it take to make a solar lamp that can always run when it is dark, winter or summer? In fact, this ties into a more general question: how do I size a… Continue reading
Intro When using my new Energizer pivot torch i noticed that it dims itself slowly over 15 minutes from the start, reaching 1/10 of the maximum intensity. The torch does this on purpose and can be reset by turning it off and on again. The HD vision headlamp This lamp is probably my most used torch in my life. Even though I got it about 8 years ago for caving, it saw most action as… Continue reading
Intro My old Ikea GRÖNÖ lamp was long due for an upgrade to LED, but I wanted to use a strip not just buy a bulb. That is because I wanted the light controllable through my 1000² home automation system. Now, the cool thing about building my own dimmers is that I could dim the light down to very low duty factors, which is pretty good considering the way human eye responds to light levels. As a… Continue reading