1) Compact and bijou…
2) …tall and proud.
I love making gadgety things, especially when they are engineered simply and from everyday things. This telescopic light (which first appeared in Make: magazine) is a good example, on one hand it has a counterbalanced mechanism that allows it to adjust to any height, on the other hand it’s made from nothing more than paper, cardboard, coins, a bit of wire and a string of Christmas lights.
Interestingly, during construction I was so focused on trying to get the counterbalance working I never really thought about it as functioning light. In fact, I wasn’t really sure whether the Christmas lights would even work as a light source, I thought they might be too weak. However, the effect, when I first turned it on was pretty cool. I hope you can get a sense of it from the video below.
Oh… and an added bonus was that the LED Christmas lights I was using (salvaged from the loft) came with a variety of flashing sequences, one for every mood! If you are up for a challenge try making your own one, it’s a little tricky, but the detailed instructions below should help you get there. Good luck.
Includes:
1) Collectable instructions – print them out & put them in a folder!
96 downloads so far, thanks everyone!
Over the years I’ve made a number of different lights, most using candles as the light source – here’s a bit of a retrospective:
No.1: Coca light!
No.2: Elegant tin can tea light holder
No.3: Marble run candlestick timer
No.4: Exhaust pipe candlestick holder
this is too cool im hopeing to get my boys into making some of your ideas ..i always loved stuff like this but had not the brain cell to come up with any lol thnx
.. i love your website …. you´re great! ^_^
tnx so much!i really enjoy it!