Made a taplight better?

I made a tap light a LED tap light.



I have a baby, well, a 2yr old now. We read at night till he falls asleep or play in the dark, some. After he falls asleep, we still need to see to not step on any "kitty landmines" or toys in the paths. I took a TAP light and made it better.


It runs 2x RED LEDs that work for the taplight.



It has 2xRED LEDs on the side for navigational use to get to the bathroom.


It has 2x WHITE LEDs on the side to help find particular toys that you need color recognition to find sometimes.

It has 3x NMIH cells, where before it would run off of 4 cells.

It has a switch for the side LEDs, so you can choose RED or WHITE.

The light has a 15ohm resistor per 2 LEDs. Probably I could get better run time if I picked better resistors, but this works.

I get a runtime of >2 week of use at 2+ hours of use a night, where I find that I then need to change out the batteries because the light "seems dim".

Over all a cheap MOD and easy light for less then $5 for the TAP light, some LEDs, a switch and some resistors.

Wow. My mom bought a kit of those that was advertised on tv a few years ago. She likes them, but they seem rather dim. I thought you may of made it with a luxeon or somthing, but that was different altogether.

The taplight works well. It is very much a marker light or low level night light. With the difuser of the TAP light, it works good for seeing most of a 10x15 room to navigate with semi dark adjusted eyes. IE you can walk around and see stuff, just after walking in from a room where the light are on. I found this useful since when I get up to get milk for the baby, I am in the refrigerator that has a light that is really bright and you pretty much stare at it as you open the refrigerator. The side LEDs work really well for navigation though. They are just drilled through the plastic and bare. Really simple. For more light as a tap light though I might suggest 3 LEDs inside and WHITE instead of 2 RED., but I see no way to get rid of the hotspots on the tap light difuser.

I am glad you mentioned the upgraded the taplight to the LUX3. I am considering an addition like this. There is a $10 TAPLIGHT that has a motion sensor built in. I was considering an adjustment to one of these that would give light when motion was detected. The problem is that the whole thing runs on 4xAA cells. So I guess I need some kind of step down to get the right Vf. Also adding some small solar panels to it so that once the light is using rechargables and the light is connected to a small solar panel, the light could run for years with no maintenence and provide enough light as a bathroom light at night. It only comes on at night and it only comes on when it is dark. I just wonder how much power the motion sensor uses. Any one know?

Some worries I have about this are that the diffuser will difuse too much of the light and the light will not be bright enough "as a light". I again worry about the power usage of the motion sensing circuitry. I am also consider the expense and the actual light gained by using 1 Lux 3 or using 2-3 GOOD white LEDs. The cost of finding a down converter to increase efficency from 4x AA instead of the drect drive of 3x AA I am currently using.

come on, give up the inside shots! lol

That is a good question. Sounds like for a lux led you need a regulator or do something to get 3.5 volts or so.

I would want it both ways, a lux light and plain old leds. This way you can have brightness and run time in a power failure. One thing I like about my new led lights is their brightness, but the lack of run time concerns me. The older dimmer led lights can run for weeks on a set of batteries than just a few hours.

I took a timer taplight that had a standard screw in bulb and broke the bulb soldered 4 LEDs to a piece of perfboard pointed at the white reflective surface inside and it works nice. No hotspots at all just a nice flood of white light.