Multi Mounting Cage Lamp

My desk lamp is getting old. The plastic swivel parts can't hold their position no more. Buy a new one? Well, seeing that the parts are still working I decided to tweak it. Re-inventing its body. But then I decided to replace the transformer with a light bulb socket, so that I can choose wide varieties of bulb to use. Started sketching a Cage Lamp with multi mounting position. Pendant lamp, table lamp, desktop working lamp, all in one ^.^

• Clamps
• File
• Saw
• Cordless Drill + bits
• Wood Trimmer
• Wood Glue
• Ruler
• Wire cutter
• Cutter knife
• Pencil
• Screwdriver
• Pencil knife
• Solder

Well, you might not need all of them. You may have your own easier or harder way to get it done. Just keep going, shall we? ^_^

Material I used are from the corner of my garage. Yes, scrap plywood. I just need to fine the appropriate size and thickness. They are three pieces of 12 x 12 cm plywood. Thickness doesn't matter at all but one size is better, isn't it? Drill a large hole at the middle piece to let the top part of lamp socket get through it. Then cut four pieces of rectangle plywood to cover the surrounding between the bottom piece and the middle piece.

At this point, do not stick the middle piece yet. We will do it when we finish wiring the socket. Before that let's get the plates done. There were gutters at three side of the plates at my initial design. These gutters are where pieces of plywood will be slid-in to prevent the light blinding my eyes when I use the desktop working mode.

Wood trimmer is my new tool. I see that it can do so much wonderful jobs in woodworking and I wanted it so badly. Then I purchased a budget friendly entry level trimmer last week. It is powerful and I lost control on my cuts. What can I say, but everyone need practices for the new tools. No worry. Cut some other plates :) This time better, and also I decided to cut the gutters at two sides only instead of three.

Mark the position of holes for bamboo chopsticks. Well, standard bamboo chopsticks we have here in Indonesia are 5 mm in diameters, so all I need here is a 5 mm drill bit. I tested it before and it just plugs in tightly. You should pay attention on drilling because we are drilling half way down so that no holes appears on the other side of the plates. I used a piece of wood which has the same length as my drill bit, leaving few millimeters that is half of my plate's thickness, so I can drill faster. The wood will just stop my drill from digging deeper.

These are the chopsticks. These are the same thing I used in my cube puzzle prototype. My kids eat noodles every Sunday morning. Every pack of noodles gets a pair of chopsticks and we always use our own washable chopsticks at home. So I keep plenty of these at home :D

Cut the pointy side of the chopsticks, so that we get 5 mm in diameter at both ends.

This is a retro socket I found at home. Cut the thinner edge at the bottom to let the wires in. Then cut out a hole for the switch and also for the cable. Two cables from the AC wall plug, one goes to the socket side plate, the other goes to the switch pin. Then take another wire from the switch pin to the socket center pin. For wiring the lamp please take Instructables Lamp Class for better tutorial ^_^

Screw the socket on the base plate. I put another three pieces of plywood to support the wall. I only used wood glue and no screw on the wall so switching the lamp frequently might break the wall. Now you can glue the middle plate for we have done the wiring part.

LED bulb is the latest energy saving light bulb technology. It provides the same brightness at much lower power consumption.

In assembling the lamp, firstly put all the chopsticks on the top plate. Then align every chopstick on its appropriate hole on the middle plate. The chopsticks may have little different in lengths and so are the depth of holes, so here you will have to fix in the stick one by one. One hand pressing lightly on top plate. Align a stick on its hole. One stick at a time until all the sticks are put in the holes properly then you can do a light hit on the top plate.

If you do it properly, you need no glue at all for the sticks and top plate.

Light up the lamp and enjoy your lamp in a cage. I cut another two pieces of plywood to slide in the gutters, to prevent direct beam into the eyes. I use a white laminated surface for a brighter spread of light. Well, my phone's camera can't take a good shot on the bright lamp :D

Do you want it hung on top or simply put it on your desktop? Here I just want to show a modular lamp which I can put it vertically on the side table, or I can hang it on the roof, or put it on another leg as a desktop lamp. I am thinking of the design of its wooden leg, some kind like Pixar's lamp ^_^

For now, I am happy putting it on the corner of my room, seeing a LED lamp in a cage :D