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Mini Tap Light Conversion to LED
Mini Tap Light Before and After
PROBLEM: The Mini Tap Light puts out too little light and drains too much juice!
SOLUTION: Replace the crappy little excuse for a bulb with three bright white LEDs.
MATERIALS:
3 - bright white 3mm LED's from eBay: 3mm, 3.3V, 30mA ($.60)
1 - Mini Tap Light from the dollar store (guess how much it cost... wrong... it was TWO for a dollar!) ($.50)
1 - 10 ohm resistor. ($.10)
Total Cost: $1.20
INSTRUCTIONS:
First step is to take everything apart and remove the cheap christmas tree light bulb. NOTE: I marked the three pieces, the dome, lid, and base with a marker to make sure I put all the pieces back in the same spot... this WILL help!
Next I wired the three LEDs in parallel and stuck in the 10 ohm resistor. This tap light uses 3 AA batteries which is perfect! I used the leads from the LEDs to connect them to eachother and create a frame for them to rest on. I hot-glued the whole framework to the base.
Finally, I put everything back together (remember I marked the pieces for easier assembly)
For comparison, here are the two lights side by side. I measured the draw and even though the new LED light is MUCH brighter, the draw is considerably less! The original light on the left draws 155 mA while the light on the right was drawing about 98 mA!
Comments, Questions, Suggestions, (or warnings that something I made is about to blow up) shoot me an email!
Original posting is here:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/mini-tap-light.php
Mini Tap Light Before and After
PROBLEM: The Mini Tap Light puts out too little light and drains too much juice!
SOLUTION: Replace the crappy little excuse for a bulb with three bright white LEDs.
MATERIALS:
3 - bright white 3mm LED's from eBay: 3mm, 3.3V, 30mA ($.60)
1 - Mini Tap Light from the dollar store (guess how much it cost... wrong... it was TWO for a dollar!) ($.50)
1 - 10 ohm resistor. ($.10)
Total Cost: $1.20
INSTRUCTIONS:
First step is to take everything apart and remove the cheap christmas tree light bulb. NOTE: I marked the three pieces, the dome, lid, and base with a marker to make sure I put all the pieces back in the same spot... this WILL help!
Next I wired the three LEDs in parallel and stuck in the 10 ohm resistor. This tap light uses 3 AA batteries which is perfect! I used the leads from the LEDs to connect them to eachother and create a frame for them to rest on. I hot-glued the whole framework to the base.
Finally, I put everything back together (remember I marked the pieces for easier assembly)
For comparison, here are the two lights side by side. I measured the draw and even though the new LED light is MUCH brighter, the draw is considerably less! The original light on the left draws 155 mA while the light on the right was drawing about 98 mA!
Comments, Questions, Suggestions, (or warnings that something I made is about to blow up) shoot me an email!
Original posting is here:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/mini-tap-light.php