What is This?

1. Cold fusion.
2. Glass art paperweight.
3. Recent Hubble photograph.
4. Time better spent washing the dishes.
5. Nightlight.
6. NiMH battery cycler.
7. Your brain on drugs.
8. Much more expensive than a Glade plug in.
9. Refrigerator raider's flashlight storage receptacle.
10. I gotta keep cheese balls in the fridge.

A very cool glass ball paper weight, lit up but what looks like a Infinity Ultra.
I see the bases in the background with no ball and light,,,, are you making these?

Whoa! Looks like a spherical lava lamp revamped by a kaleidescope of sorts...
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Very pretty inner section. Love the colorfull mushroom looking pattern. Neat how it looks like it's lit from the top.

that's really cool looking!

if it's anyones brain, it's probably barts...he's eaten so many of them his brain is likely to look very much like that...

Can I break it? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif

Answers 2, 5, 6, and 9 were the original project intent. Along way I picked up answers 4 and 8.



Credit for the glass art goes to Eric Kvarnes of Sperryville, Virginia. Drop by the Oldway Art Center if you
re ever in his neck of the woods. A talented and truly nice man. Here are pictures of the bases by themselves:



My concept was to build a beautiful nightlight powered by a standard LED light that could be pulled out to go get snacks or perform other duties at night. It's also a good way to keep my NiMH battery stock cycled and freshly charged.

As you can tell, the design is pretty simple. A block of Cherry, a section of copper pipe, an elliptical mirror (actually a piece of mirror finish metal laminate), and furniture pads to keep the glass art in place.

The original design, the one I use most often, was designed around the CMG Infinity. It runs a few days before I have to switch out the battery. Though quite dim during the daytime, it puts out enough light for the job at night. I made the Arc AAA version just to see how small the concept could go. The Arc runs about 6 hours on my 700 mAH NiMH AAAs - not quite a full night's sleep.

It was a fun project! Mine will be regular bedside table companion, and I may give a few as gifts.

awesome!

i thought the picture was cool, but to hear the story, and realize what it really is is amazing!

hats off to you! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

COOOOL
Nice idea and neat presentation. great story too
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

looks like what fish tanks should look like. (without the fish)

Dude, that's pretty cool. I like it. Especially the dual functonality.

At the risk of being redundant, cool! (You aren't, by any chance also a "child of the '60s?" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif )

Larry

Thanks to all for the compliments. The technological wonders I see here leave me in awe. I'm not capable or equipped for the electronics and metalwork, but try to contribute in other ways.

I hadn't thought beyond the few I've made. If there's interest I could contact Eric Kvarnes to check on the possibility of a limited run and make bases to match, or perhaps make a few bases just by themselves. Not all glass art will work with the bases. The best ones have clear glass centers to let light get up inside, and colored glass that passes a fair amount of light. I spent about an hour looking through Eric's entire shop, studio, and storage room using an Arc AAA and BB400/MM to figure out what art forms work best.

I really like that myself. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I think I have an idea for you to add another dimension of depth and some super contrast to your glass art. Get your hands on some laser diodes and defocus or remove the lenses and set them up underneath the glass art. I have seen something like your glass art in Laguna Beach California and was dieing to try my idea then to the point of speaking to the curator about possibly work my idea into some stands.
So if you make a mill on this just slice me off a little will you. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yellowlaugh.gif

Totally cool the way it looks like an old pot holder or old pot with thick boil on!

The idea of bottom lighting glass art has been done plenty of times before. Eric uses an edge routed wood block with a standard 4 watt nightlight socket and bulb inside. I'm not aware of any other glass art bases that allow you to take the light with you - any don't ugly up your nightstand with a cord. Does the laser diode approach somehow provide those features as well?

I was getting modules that would run on two AAA batteries for what I would guess to be about 60 hours of useable light in this art lighting application. They are only three volt at 60 ma. A couple C cells keep these things lit a long time. The longevity of the modules is around 20,000 hours of continuous light.
Another thought would be to alternate different colored lights or LEDs as the lasers are monochromatic and a lot of the color may be picked up in different areas using different spectrums of light. It's a thought anyway. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

Looking at it again the red lasers should really make that center red area just go off!

I think I have a picture somewhere of some glass birds with flowers around them that I illuminated with lasers for Christmas Gifts this last year.

Looks like some sort of "drug dispersement device" if you know what I mean... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif Not that I would know anything about that... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I'm just counting down until the laser pointer pops out and he gets a look at it with the laser on it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif