Here is a small assortment of discrete-LED mounts adapted for commercial lamps and fittings.
The first is a personal favourite. An old CFL table-lamp had reluctantly been consigned to the 'junk box'. It was retrieved, cleaned up and the insides removed. I retained the old heavy choke or ballast purely as "ballast" to keep the lamp steady with its weight. A small piece of parallel-track PCB was cut and fashioned to fit into the lamp housing and the LEDs and resistors were wired up. The original switch was retained and the capacitor/bridge rectifier assembly was kept in the base and insulated well from the heavy iron and copper ballast. As the lamp "joints" move a lot while the lamp height is adjusted, good quality thin two-core jacketed mains wire was used for connection from the bridge to the LED PCB. Screw everything back together and you have that favourite old lamp in a new energy-efficient and cool-running 'avatar'! The technique could be adapted to modify virtually any table lamp that you have.
The second is a 'dome light' at home that stays switched on from evening till midnight, which makes it a prime candidate for LED conversion. The photo shows the acrylic LED mount and the glass dome diffuser. As it needs to put out a 'decent' amount of light, LEDs were 'lavished' on it. A piece of acrylic, cut to fit inside the housing is marked and drilled for the LEDs. It is best to do all your planning and drawing on a piece of graph paper to make it easy. Then stick the paper to the acrylic sheet with glue (it will peel off easily) and then drill it carefully. The photo shows an early 'proto' sheet that broke while drilling. If your lamp assembly is small, you could even use a couple of waste CDs (perhaps DVDs will be more 'mod'!) stuck together with superglue for thickness and strength as the LED base. (A good gesture from the angle of recycling too! ) Be careful, as always, about clean wiring and soldering and insulation. Mount the assembly into the lamp and wire it to the domestic wiring using a 2X screw connector strip. Put on the glass dome, and the diffuser will give a smooth spread of light.
The third project tackles the conversion of a tubular hanging lamp with a spotted glass cylindrical shade. This called for a tubular mount for the LEDs. A short piece of 2 inch PVC water pipe does duty nicely here. The pipe is split in the middle into two so that the LEDs could be wired up easily. The two halves are wired up and tested as independent lamp assemblies and after rolling up a piece of plastic sheet (from an old file or so) as an insulator, the halves are joined together with tape or a couple of rings of plastic pipe that have been heated and pressed on. Remove the 'bayonet' fitting from a discarded CFL, connect up the wires and stick it to one end so that you could put the LED 'bulb' on just like a regular bulb or CFL into the lamp fitting.
Hope this gives you enough ideas to trigger your imagination. As I said, your imagination is the limit, and your care and craftsmanship will give a 'pro' finish to your handiwork, turning it into a "designer lamp". Remember to mail me your notes and pics so that I could post them here.
Gentlemen, start your drills!
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