I love lamp...

[UTfball68]

I'm gonna try to build a desk lamp this weekend with a 73-79 Ford truck motif. I have several sheds of parts I'll never use, so why not turn them in to man art. The plan was to use one of my old cams I have rolling around as the stalk. I have a 79 steering wheel I figured I could weld the cam to the back side of. Then I'd use an old air filter housing as the bas to mount the steering wheel to. I also wanted to put a swivel on the other end of the cam.

All that is the easy stuff...but I am a complete electrical dunce. To maintain the truck motif, I wanted to use a headlight (round or rectangle, doesn't matter). So I come to the dilemma of trying to use a 12v headlight on a 110v plug, or gut the sealed beam headlight and use a DIY kit. I think I'm going to go with the 12v.

Now someone smarter than me (I'm assuming) did the electrical figgerin and told me I could go the following route:

Use this as the wall plug in:
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=120-056

Cut the 'cylinder' end off, splice in some 16/2 audio 'zip cord', while also running a 10 amp fuse inline somewhere after the charging box. Then run the zip cord to the head light. I'd solder and shrink wrap all connections.

Does this sound right, or am I one project away from sending my office up in flames???

 

[Smokeater]

I would say it should work. A standard H6024 Headlight shows to only draw 3.13 amps per Autozone's web site.

 

[catfishblues]

Yep. Realistically, you're looking at between 3 and 4 amps for a 55w bulb. Just don't run the high-beam side of the plug! What I would do is look around on the PE website and find the 2.1mm female receptacle for that power supply, mount it to the base or somewhere on the lamp, then wire it to a headlight socket from the parts store to make bulb replacement easier. I wouldn't worry about fusing it, the switching power supply built into that box is already fused. I would consider adding a switch to the AC side of the power supply, though. That way, when it's off, it's off. No standby current being drawn. Either that, or put it on a switched outlet.

Now to the criticism of the design...a sealed beam headlight is going to produce a very focused, very bright pattern. Not very good for room lighting, and blinding if you get in front of it. Being all-glass, you'll have a hard time gutting one and adding a different bulb. There are plastic housings available, though, that look like 7" round lights. I'd consider modding one of those for a CFL bulb and doing away with the 12v confusion altogether.

 

[Reid]

shining that light straight up.....into a hub cap which then disperses the light would probably work. Also, ive seen people tint their headlights. that might be an option. not sure how they do it.

 

[UTfball68]

Thanks for the input fellas. It fell off the to-do list this weekend, but I'll try to tackle next weekend. And to be quite honest, I'm not set and determined on the light source, simplicity would be best for me. I just wanted to hear ideas if anybody had some.

 

[UTfball68]

So I got this far tonight...basically dug some parts out. The base is a 400 air filter housing lid, mocked up on that is a 79 steering wheel...and the post is a cam out of a random 400 I had...