In my previous post I talked about influences that lead to the idea of this lamp. Concerning Japanese lighting elements, I’d like to add that two key defining aspects I’ve learned from them are indirect lighting and ambient lighting. In most cases in common household a point source (bulb) lamp is used to light an area while using a shade to block direct light. Having a direct view of a bulb can sometimes be too bright for the eye. Typically these lamps are either directed upwards to reflect off the ceiling or downwards to light up the floor. With ambient lighting we focus on smaller areas to create a contrast with light at dark. Some examples of this are using focused point sources directly on walls to light up a certain section, a highlight lamp to bring out a feature in the space and using edge lighting near the ceiling or floor.
In my room I have a lot of blank wall space which I like to use like a reflective surface for lighting as previously mentioned. Additionally, my bed has no headboard, but has a 4″ ledge the length of the wall about a foot above it, perfect for mounting my lamp. However I don’t want to mount directly to it since it has a nice finished surface, so I’ll need a base to my lamp that will sit on it.
This is my target design. The idea was to create 3D printed hinges and connectors and whatever raw materials I could easily pick up at home depot. In this case I planned to pick up a 2×4, some sort of pipe and metal bars. The design of the reflector (not a shade) was the more complex aspect of this. I wanted the reflector to be capable of multiple orientations for different lighting dynamics. In the top left you can see in one mode it reflects upwards, directing the light toward the wall and ceiling for ambient lighting. In the next the reflector is straight and covers a larger area downwards. Below that the reflector is curved to focus light right below it.
To achieve these modes I designed a custom hinge (mid bottom). In the stationary half it connects to the pipe holding it up through which wires are fed for a clean wireless appearance. The LED strip itself is adhered to an aluminum bar slotted into bottom of the rotational part of the hinge. At the top of the rotational part, there is a slot that splits into two directions. This is for the base of the reflector so that it can be changed to reflect forwards or backwards. At the very top of the rotational part there will be a hole to add a small telescoping pipe. This will attach to the top of the reflector so that the curvature can be adjusted.
The electronics enclosure will be set in the middle of the base with wires being fed under or behind it in channels. Since the the ATmega is part of the arduino development board, it’s easier to run everything with pin connectors than create a custom pcb. This also allows for different orientations of circuits so that the LCD can be perpendicular to the board and secondary boards for buttons, clock electronics can be mounted to the walls. The arduino will be at the bottom with a power splitting circuit to split off a 5v feed to run the microcontroller from the 12V supply.
The diagonal split between the top and bottom of the electronics box is to maximize access to the electronics while minimizing the number of pieces. There is a lip on the front edge so that the pieces will hinge and rotate around that edge. This is to minimize the length of the wires attaching the button array and LCD to the bottom half of the electronics and allowing access without having to disconnect them.