Desk Lamp - New Project

During my last semester at school I discovered the need for a desk lamp. The one I used during the semester was chunky and didn't quite have the reach I needed to light the center of my desk (I put the lamp's base on one of my speakers). I also burned myself a few times on the light housing. As usual I figured I could do better.

These were a few of my design thoughts:

-High power LED (More light, less heat, nearly unlimited lifetime, less power consumption, smaller, lighter)
-LARGE (My computer setup is around 80" wide)
-Light weight (The lighter the arm is, the smaller the base can be without the lamp tipping)
-Cool looking (who wants an eye sore on their desk?)

I actually came up with this a few months ago, but I hadn't decided to make it until the past couple days.

Here's a few quick renders of the lamp in a few positions.

This design has a swivel base to give the lamp more flexibility. The light is held by two parallel arm segments. No matter where the light is positioned it will always be parallel to the base of the lamp. I found a really cool led strip that is a 10 watt LED, so it should easily light up the desk and maybe even the room. I made sure the base was large enough that the lamp would never tip, even when fully extended. The base is an 8" diameter piece of aluminum. The current base will weigh over 9 pounds while the entire arm and light should only weigh a little over a pound.

I started with the arm because the pieces were small and required little material removal. The long pieces used for the parallel arm gave me an excuse to use my 40" calipers (I had been itching to use them to make an actual part).

 These parts could have been made a lot faster if I had a machine that could accept bits larger than 1/8"...
I am fortunate that my CNC mill is very accurate and always seems to hit its dimensions without any need for cutting and measuring, but it's sooooo slow.

All of the arm pieces are made from 1/4" square aluminum. Each one has 1/8" press fit stainless dowel pins.

Each segment of the arm has 1/4" aluminum tubing to keep the wires hidden and protected. The tubing is .035" wall, so it doesn't add much weight at all.

The arm has nearly zero play in the joints. Even the slightest touch to one end will cause the other to move as well. The two end pieces are always perpendicular to each other. It's also symmetrical which makes it harder for me to assemble it incorrectly =D

The arm is held in place by the clamping force from the center joint's plates. This picture also shows the size of the lamp.

So far the lamp seems really solid even though it's made from such tiny aluminum rods. It should be a nice addition to my desk once I finish the base and LED housing.

Guitar Bridge

I finished the bridge on the guitar! I actually started it last summer when I made the string adjusters and half of one of the parts that makes up the base. I made most of the base at school but still had to complete the half finished part. It took me less than an hour to pop it out (including writing the code which is done by hand rather than with a CAM program). 

I also have a new phone so the camera is less blurry (mostly because it doesn't lag while taking pictures).

I also finished up some more of the head last week.

 I had reverse-engineered some tuning knobs into my CAD from a drawing that I had found online. When I went to one of the guitar stores I found the EXACT same ones I had found online. I had to buy them once I realized that. It saved me a ton of time when designing the head.

The head turned out pretty nice. It still needs the string alignment posts.  I have the material for those turned down to the right diameter, but I still have to cut them to length. Ill finish those when I get bored milling and want to switch to running the lathe.

 I also got a new set of calipers. They're a bit bigger than my old 6" set. You can really only make parts as accurately as you can measure them, so I figured it would be good to get a HUGE (40") set of calipers to make those giant parts to within 0.001 inches. It looks like my neck is about 0.001-0.002" over 19". I'd say that's pretty good considering I had no way to check the dimensions of my part as I was machining it.

The guitar is slowly coming along. If I finish the main piece for the body I'll basically have it in a playable state. I hope the resonance of the aluminum gives it a unique sound, but doesn't make it sound awful. I do have some plans to add damping material into the neck if the resonance makes it sound strange.