Converting a table lamp to LEDs. Converting a fluorescent lamp to LED

If the old Soviet luminaire with fluorescent fluorescent lamps such as LB-40, LB-80 is out of order, or you are tired of changing the starter in it, disposing of the lamps themselves (and you can’t just throw them in the trash for a long time), then you can easily convert to LED.

Most importantly, fluorescent and LED lamps have the same base - G13. No upgrade of the housing, unlike other types of pin contacts, is required.

  • G- means that pins are used as contacts
  • 13 is the distance in millimeters between these pins

Rework Benefits

In doing so, you will receive:


  • greater illumination
  • lower losses (almost half of the useful energy in fluorescent lamps can be lost in the inductor)
  • lack of vibration and nasty rattling sound from the ballast throttle

True, in more modern models, electronic ballast is already used. They increased efficiency (90% or more), noise disappeared, but energy consumption and luminous flux remained at the same level.

For example, new models of such LPO and LVO are often used for Armstrong ceilings. Here is a rough comparison of their effectiveness:

Another advantage of LED - there are models designed for supply voltages from 85V to 265V. For fluorescent you need 220V or close to it.

For such Led, even if the mains voltage is weak or too high, they will start up and shine without any complaints.

Luminaires with electromagnetic control gear

What should I pay attention to when converting simple fluorescent fixtures to LED? First of all, its design.

If you have a simple old Soviet-style lamp with starters and an ordinary (not electronic gear) throttle, then in fact you don’t need to upgrade anything.

Just pull out the starter, select a new LED lamp according to the overall size, insert it into the housing and enjoy brighter and more economical lighting.


If the starter is not removed from the circuit, then when replacing the LB lamp with an LED one, a short circuit can be created.

The throttle does not need to be removed. For LED, the current consumption will be within 0.12A-0.16A, and for the ballast, the operating current in such old lamps is 0.37A-0.43A, depending on the power. In fact, it will play the role of an ordinary jumper.

After all the alteration, the lamp you have remains the same. There is no need to change the mount on the ceiling, and the burned-out lamps will no longer have to be disposed of and look for special containers for them.

For such lamps, separate drivers and power supplies are not needed, since they are already built-in inside the case.

The main thing is to remember the main feature - for LEDs, two pin contacts on the base are rigidly connected to each other.

And in luminescent they are connected by a filament. When it is heated, the mercury vapor ignites.

In models with electronic control gear, no filament is used and the gap between the contacts is broken by a high voltage pulse.

The most common sizes of such tubes:

  • 300mm (used in table lamps)


  • 900mm and 1200mm

The longer their length, the brighter the glow.

Alteration of the lamp with electronic control gear

If you have a more modern model, without a starter, with an electronic ballast (electronic ballast), then you will have to tinker a bit with changing the circuit.

What is inside the lamp before alteration:

  • throttle
  • wires
  • contact pads-cartridges on the sides of the case

The choke is what needs to be thrown out first. Without it, the entire structure will significantly lose weight. Unscrew the mounting screws or drill out the rivets, depending on the fastener.

Then disconnect the power wires. You may need a narrow-bladed screwdriver to do this.

You can wire these and just have a bite to eat with pliers.

The connection diagram of the two lamps is different, on the LED everything is done much easier:

The main task that needs to be solved is to apply 220V to different ends of the lamp. That is, the phase is on one output (for example, the right one), and zero on the other (left).

Earlier it was said that for an LED lamp, both pin contacts inside the base are interconnected by a jumper. Therefore, here it is impossible, as in a fluorescent one, to supply 220V between them.

Use a multimeter to verify this. Set it to the resistance measurement mode, and touch the two leads with the test probes to measure.

The display should show the same values ​​as when the probes are connected to each other, i.e. zero or close to it (taking into account the resistance of the probes themselves).

The fluorescent lamp, between the two terminals on each side, has the resistance of the filament, which, after applying a voltage of 220V through it, warms up and “starts” the lamp.

  • without dismantling cartridges
  • with dismantling and installation of jumpers through their contacts

without dismantling

The easiest way is without dismantling, but you will have to buy a couple of Wago clamps.
In general, you bite out all the wires suitable for the cartridge at a distance of 10-15mm or more. Then put them into the same Vago clamp.

Do the same with the other side of the lamp. If the wago terminal block does not have enough contacts, you will have to use 2 pcs.

After that, all that remains is to apply phase to the clamp on one side, and zero on the other.

No Vago, just twist the wires under the PPE cap. With this method, you do not need to deal with the existing circuit, with jumpers, climb into the contacts of the cartridges, etc.

With the dismantling of cartridges and the installation of jumpers

Another method is more scrupulous, but does not require any extra costs.

Remove the side covers from the lamp. This must be done carefully, because. in modern products, the latches are made of fragile and brittle plastic.

After that, you can dismantle the contact cartridges. Inside them are two contacts that are isolated from each other.

Such cartridges can be of several varieties:

All of them are equally suitable for lamps with a G13 base. They may have springs inside.

First of all, they are not needed for better contact, but so that the lamp does not fall out of it. Plus, due to the springs, there is some compensation for the size of the length. Since with an accuracy of up to a millimeter, it is not always possible to make identical lamps.

There are two power wires for each cartridge. Most often, they are attached by snapping into special screwless contacts.

Turn them clockwise and counterclockwise, and with an effort pull out one of them.

As mentioned above, the pins inside the connector are isolated from each other. And by dismantling one of the wires, you actually leave one contact socket out of your hands.

All current will now flow through the other pin. Of course, everything will work on one, but if you are making a lamp for yourself, it makes sense to slightly improve the design by placing a jumper.

Thanks to her, you do not have to catch the contact by turning the LED lamp around. The double connector ensures a secure connection.

The jumper can be made from the extra power wires of the lamp itself, which you will definitely have as a result of the alteration.

With a tester, you check that after installing the jumper, there is a circuit between the previously isolated connectors. Do the same with the second plug-in contact on the other side of the lamp.

The main thing is to make sure that the remaining power wire is no longer phase, but zero. You bite the rest.

Fluorescent lamps for two, four or more lamps

If you have a two-lamp lamp, it is best to supply voltage to each connector with separate conductors.

When installing a simple jumper between two or more cartridges, the design will have a significant drawback.

The second lamp will glow only if the first one is installed in its place. Remove it, and the other one will immediately go out.

The supply conductors must converge on the terminal block, where in turn you will have connected:

Probably at least once, but you have seen just such a table lamp, more often, such designs are used in manipulations in beauty salons.
However, in ordinary home life, such a lamp is very convenient.
Since I spend enough time at my laptop, I had to have such lighting on a rather long tripod. Only I do not consider the cold white CW light emitted by it to be comfortable. The lamp worked for me for more than a year, and I began to suspect that soon the life of the fluorescent lamp would come to an end, and I ordered a coil of LED strip in advance.

The tape arrived, and I just had to wait for the lamp to burn out - which happened a few days later.

I suggest that you look with me at such an option for redesigning the design on:
- its application with led strip;
- think (and implement) about what new qualities this lamp can acquire;
- slightly repair the reflector rotation unit;
- to dream about what else could, if desired, be added to an already finished lamp.

Disassembly.

It was not difficult - it is always easier to disassemble. Pay attention to the massive choke that was hidden in the cubic cavity of the vertical rotary assembly of the luminaire rod system. I got rid of it, but of course I did not throw it away.

In the base of the lamp, a plastic container was found with cement poured into it, which pleasantly surprised me - I expected to find a bag of sand. Of course, this weighting agent will have to be replaced with something. Looking ahead, I’ll say that at that time, I was leaning towards the sand, but a replacement was found.

The coil itself with tape on 2835 LEDs. The choice was not random. I did not want too much power (brightness), since I would have to think about removing significant heat. I also didn’t want to complicate the designs by dimming - because I don’t like long-term ones. And the tape must be WW - warm white glow. In general, I bought exactly what I wanted.

The tape was cut into 8 pieces, and glued with a sticky layer to the standard reflector.
Then I became discouraged, realizing that how much I would have to solder ...

After cutting off a suitable piece of the circuit board, I prepared and irradiated 16 conductors. In this case, a group of eight conductors was located in the center of the circuit board and was defined as positive conductors, and two groups of four conductors were intended to be connected to the negative pole of the power source.

To my joy, it soldered very easily, and literally after 7 minutes, I already had a ready-made version.


And

I put the handkerchief itself on hot glue, and checked the operation at reduced voltage, - I was pleased with the result.

Power supply and stand.

I decided to place it in a stand. Just one such, quite overall, I had nothing to do. And again, looking ahead, I will say that - this placement of the power supply is not the only one.

Since I could no longer place a regular weighting agent, I was about to grab a plastic bag with sand, but I remembered that six years ago I was engaged in casting half-rings of weighting agents from lead and fled to my magical barn. In the same shed, I also came across a rubber ball pierced by me from mine.

The half-rings were flattened on the anvil, because, in height, they interfered with the assembly of the base of the lamp, and were wrapped in halves from a deflated ball - it turned out tight, tight and elastic. =)

Yes, pay attention to the piece of twisted cord - it was soldered at one end to 12v from the power supply, passed through the hole on reverse side stands. At its other end, a plug was soldered for connecting to a reciprocal socket, which I placed in an empty cubic cavity left after removing the inductor.

General form turned out like this

Minor repairs.

After a year of operation, the head of the lamp with a reflector is no longer fixed in horizontal position. In other words, if the head of the lamp is turned at an angle to the upper link of the lamp leg, the swivel assembly could not bear the weight of the head, and the head itself fell down.
This, of course, was to blame for the weight of the fluorescent light bulb. And although the weight of the entire lamp assembly has significantly decreased, this problem remains.
It was impossible to disassemble this knot, and I just bit off the plastic ebbs of the knot strut, and screwed a self-tapping screw between the springy petals.
Everyone who came across a lamp of this type must have come across this defect of the rotary assembly - you will figure it out =)


And

Touch control.

Look down the photos, you can see the pink USB light on a flexible leg, it is touch sensitive. These lamps, I scored five pieces a few years ago at fifty cents for one.



In general, I gave three, and left two. The LEDs in one of them have lost their brightness, this is especially noticeable in comparison with the new one.

Inside the lamp are hidden:
- chip TPP223;
- field N (corrected, for which - thanks) channel transistor SI2302;
- three LEDs;
- and SMD strapping all of this.

This is a ready-made control scheme, and I could not help being seduced by it.
The only thing I applied to the TPP223 was from the integrated 3.3v stabilizer. I knocked off two LEDs from the board, and left the last one for debugging. I put low-resistance resistors for the sake of experiment, then, I removed them.
The total current was less than one ampere =)

What could be done differently.

As you can see, I used an overall power supply - but it was like that.
You also saw that the cubic cavity that housed the choke was left empty. If you have a small-sized 12v power supply at hand, then it is better to place it there. Then, in the stand, you can place the coils wireless charging, they just beg for it there, and for the detachable connection of the stand and the power supply, you can use the same trick that I used =)

PS
I did not know that this type of lamps are quite common among readers =))
A snippet of the video is available at

Lighting is the most important component of the interior. The coziness and comfort level of our home depends on the lighting. The play of light and shadow allows you to beat the winning moments of the interior and divert attention from bad moments. And also - lamps, floor lamps, chandeliers and lamps create the atmosphere that we call "home". Unique lamps and The best way- make a lampshade with your own hands. Homemade plafonds and lampshades are the thing that will make your home stand out from the rest.

A few words about security

In the manufacture of lamps, floor lamps and chandeliers in industrial conditions, the minimum distance from the "body" of the lamp to the materials is preliminarily calculated. This distance depends on the power and thermal radiation of the lamp and on the type (combustibility) of the material from which the ceiling / lampshade is made. At home, hardly anyone will bother with such calculations. And in order not to create a dangerous situation, it is worth adhering to certain rules.

And in general, having made a lampshade and installing it, in the first few days, pay attention to whether the ceiling heats up. Heating is any increase in temperature above ambient. If the lampshade feels “warm”, change the light bulb to a less powerful one. Check again. So until the homemade lampshade warms up.

Where to get a frame

If you want to remake an old lamp, floor lamp, sconces in which the old lampshade has become unusable, you can simply use the existing base by peeling off the old material. Before starting work, inspect the frame well, if there is rust or a damaged coating somewhere, maybe it’s worth stripping everything off and painting it again? At the same time, the color can be changed. If there are no old frames, you can buy an inexpensive lamp (in a store or at a flea market) and do the same operations with it. Good lampshades can, by the way, be made from waste baskets. They are wire, there are plastic. The main thing is to find a suitable shape and size. Then make a hole in the bottom for the cartridge. Further - it's up to decoration / plating, and here there are a lot of options.

If this method is also not available, you can make a lampshade without a frame (there are some) or make a frame yourself. The material for making a frame for a lampshade with your own hands is: wire, wood (wooden or bamboo sticks, specially cut elements), plastic bottles.

How to make a frame for a homemade wire lampshade

The wire for the lamp frame needs aluminum or steel. Aluminum is easy to work with, but wrinkle easily. This is not very important when the lampshade is already in use, but this fact must be taken into account during operation: you can ruin the shape. On the other hand, such plasticity allows easy and simple changes in the shape during operation. So that's a good option. Aluminum wire can be "mined" from electrical cables. You will have to remove the protective shell and you can use it.

Steel wire is more elastic, so it retains its shape well. It can be found in the construction market. It's harder to work with her. It is desirable that there were strong male hands nearby.

In addition to the wire, you will need powerful wire cutters and pliers to work. The frame of the lampshade usually consists of two rings and racks connecting them. The shape of the future lampshade depends on the size of the rings and the shape of the racks. Questions may arise regarding the number of racks and how they are attached. The number of posts depends on the size of the rings and how "round" you want the lampshade to be. The more posts, the more “smoothly” the fabric will lie. So it's up to you, but optimal distance between the uprights in the lower circle - about 5-6 cm.

Techniques for creating a frame for a wire lampshade

Methods for attaching the stack to the lampshade rings depend on the thickness and type of wire, as well as the tools you have. The easiest is to make a small hook at the end, then clamp it tightly. And so that the ring does not slide left and right, pre-treat the wire at the attachment point with sandpaper with a large grain. This is an option for thick aluminum wire. If the wire is steel, and with a diameter of 1.2-2 mm or more, the best way is. Thinner wire can be bent and wrapped around the ring or also made a hook.

If you make hooks, wind the wire, appearance it turns out far from being as perfect as that of factory frames. But this imperfection will be covered by the lampshade itself. If she still worries you, find a ribbon of a suitable color (usually matched to the color of the lampshade) and carefully wrap the resulting frame. It will get much better. The tape can be smeared with PVA glue and, wet, tightly, turn by turn, wrap the frame around.

wire mesh

If you can find a fine wire mesh, you can quickly make an almost perfect cylindrical shade for a floor lamp, table lamp, night lamp, candle shade, etc. All you need is to cut off a piece of mesh of the desired length and width, roll it into a ring and fasten the wires by wrapping them around the racks.

To prevent the mesh from straightening when cutting off a piece, cut so that long free ends remain on both sides. They will fasten the ceiling of a cylindrical shape. And the imperfection of the upper and lower rings can be masked with a tape of the desired color.

From a five-liter plastic bottle

An interesting shape lampshade can be obtained from a large plastic bottle. There are bottles of 5-6 liters and even 10. Here they can be used. From the container we cut off the top or the bottom - depending on what you like best. In the cut off part we make a ring for the cartridge. If the top is cut off, a neck can be used for some cartridges. For those with a larger diameter, it will have to be cut off.

Then we cut out the excess plastic, form the rims and racks of the ceiling. In order not to be mistaken, you can first draw all the lines with a marker. Cutting will be easier. Everything is elementary. Then we just decorate. And yes, it is necessary to cut out the plastic, otherwise the warm air will have nowhere to go.

We make lampshades on the frame

There are enough options on how to make a lampshade cover:


From tapes

The simplest and fast way transform an old lampshade for a floor lamp or table lamp - use ribbons. You need a frame or lampshade in the form of a cylinder. It can be "naked" or covered with fabric. If you use a "bare" frame, the light will break through the cracks, which will create interesting lighting effects, but the lighting will not be uniform. Reading in this light is inconvenient - this is an interior solution. If you need even lighting, cover the frame with fabric first. It can be the same color as the ribbon, a couple of tones darker or lighter, it can be contrasting. Everything depends on your desire. And remember that the darker the fabric, the less light the lampshade lets through.

We take a tape 1-2.5 cm wide. We fix it from the wrong side of the lampshade with PVA glue, additionally fixing it with a pin. If you took a wire frame without fabric, we attach it to the upper or lower rim (you can sew it on with your hands, you can use glue). Then we begin to wrap the entire frame, from top to bottom, placing the turns of the tape close to each other, but without overlap.

Having finished the circle, we unfold the tape 90 °. We fix it in this position (with a needle and thread or PVA glue, glue from a gun, temporarily fixing it with a pin, pressing it with a clothespin). Then we skip the tape under the first tape, pull it out, lay it on top of the second one, then pull it down again, pull it up through one tape. So, gradually, we create an interlacing, filling the entire lampshade.

Alternatively, you can skip two vertical tapes. But then you need to make sure that each next row moves one crossbar. Then you get a different type of weave. Such a lampshade is ideal for floor lamps, since it will direct the light downwards, scattering through the walls will be small.

In this version, the ribbons can be the same, they can be of the same color, but of a different texture, they can differ by a couple of tones or be contrasting. In a circle, the tapes can be started all the way, or you can - after a certain distance. If you find a wide tape and apply it with an overlap, then horizontal ones will not be needed at all. And if you use a braided or twisted cord (in the lower photo on the right), we get a completely different lampshade in appearance. So only this technique of finishing the lampshade gives a lot of options.

Let's briefly present the ideas. There are many options for how you can design standard frames for lampshades in a non-standard way. The first method has already been voiced: you can knit a lampshade cover on knitting needles or crochet. Several options in the photo.

Not everyone knows how to knit. It is easier to work with beads, especially if you glue them. You can decorate an old fabric with beads, sequins, beads of various shapes and sizes. You can make such a “new-old” lampshade with your own hands in a couple of hours. You select the decorations that match the color, coat the fabric with PVA glue, stick the decorations. To complete the look, you can assemble pendants from beads and beads that are attached to the lower rim, but this is already painstaking work. Although the effect is interesting.

You can sew a new lampshade out of fabric. But it is not necessary to make it an updated copy of the old one. Fantasy must be turned on! If the lamp or floor lamp is in the girls' room, a new cover for the lampshade can be made in the form of a skirt. The style of the skirt is up to you. Interesting look in the fold. With and without ruffles.

In the boy's room, you can use an old geographical map. They are on thick paper. If the paper is not thick enough, first you need to stick the card on cardboard, and then glue the lampshade from such a blank.

Original shades are obtained if the finished frame is braided with threads or ropes. Ropes can be natural. In this case, they are gray, brown beige. You can find thin synthetic colored cords. Of these, more "fun" in color products will turn out. The situation is even simpler with knitting threads. They are thin, thick, textured, with a smoothly changing color. In general, there are a lot of options.

We take the frame and braid it according to a certain pattern. You can start with racks. Braid each rack with a pigtail (the length of the threads should be 3 times the height of the rack). When this work is finished, we begin to stretch the threads / ropes between the racks. They will need to be passed through pigtails, so it is more convenient to do this with threads with a needle, and the ropes can be pushed through like that.

The second option is to first entangle the entire frame horizontally, and then braid the racks. A pigtail will no longer work here, you just need to fix the turns on the rack with oblique stitches with a certain slope. This version is somewhat simpler in execution, but the “pigtails” look more decorative.

Homemade ceiling lamps without a frame

Many materials are rigid enough to hold their shape on their own, yet malleable enough to be made into something interesting. There are a lot of such homemade lampshades. And almost all of them are worth your attention. We give here only a part, the other part will go in the photo section (see below).

From knitted lace doilies

Many people have crocheted napkins and they lie in the “stash”, because it’s a pity to throw it away and they don’t know how to use it. There is a very interesting idea - to make a lampshade for a hanging chandelier out of them. In addition to napkins, you will need a large balloon or an inflatable ball, glue for heavy wallpaper (vinyl, silkscreen, etc.), a brush.

We soak the glue according to the instructions, wait until it swells. Inflate a balloon or take a ball, hang it up. When the glue is ready, lay out a napkin on some clean surface, coat it with glue, put it on a ball.

It is necessary to lay out with such a condition that in the center there will be a hole for the cartridge. Glue the napkins one by one. They need to be laid out so that the edges overlap slightly. When all the napkins are laid, once again coat them with glue and leave to dry. When the glue is dry, blow off the ball or ball (the ball can be pierced if you don't mind) and take it out through the hole. That's all, the lace lampshade is ready.

In some cases, there are problems with how to hang the finished lampshade on the cartridge. The problem is solved simply - take a transparent plastic bottle, cut off its neck, if necessary, expand the hole to the desired size (so that it fits tightly on the cartridge), then cut off the plastic so that you get a ring 5-7 cm wide. Lubricate this ring with PVA glue , and glue it to the lampshade from the inside of the ball.

Round plafonds made of threads

Almost the same technology can be used to make round and semicircular stylish shades. Choose the thread of the right color. Their composition is absolutely unimportant - the color, thickness and texture are important. They can be shaggy, smooth, twisted, thinner and thicker. It depends on the appearance. It is most convenient to work with cotton threads of medium thickness. They absorb glue well and then, after drying, keep their shape perfectly.

You will also need a ball or ball. This will be the base of the lampshade, which sets the shape. Choose the size of the base as you wish. The threads will need to be glued, for this you need PVA glue. It is poured into a container, diluted with water in a ratio of 1: 1.

You can use other glue. It is important that it becomes transparent after drying. These are WB-29 from TYTAN Professional and D2 joinery adhesive. If you use any of these types of glue, read the instructions.

On the ball or ball, draw a circle, which will be slightly smaller in size than the lamp socket. On the opposite side, draw a larger circle - this will be the lower edge of the ceiling. Now everything is ready, we can start.

We coat the threads with glue and wind them around the ball in a chaotic manner. It is more convenient to do this if the glue is poured into a container - you can lower the entire skein there, and just pull the thread slowly. With glue in a tube, everything is not so comfortable: you have to coat sections up to a meter long, wind them up, and coat them again. Time goes much longer. This is if you do not use PVA. But on the other hand, the products turn out to be more rigid and do not sag, do not change shape over time, as can happen with filament lampshades on PVA.

When winding threads around the ball, we carefully go around the drawn circles. If you accidentally climbed into the "forbidden territory", we simply move the threads, forming an even (more or less even) edge. When the threads run out or you decide that there is enough density, the process can be stopped. We fill the edge of the thread between others. All. Then we coat the ball with wound threads again with glue (PVA can be watered) and leave to dry (at least 2 days). To prevent the ball from rolling, we find a bowl or pan and use it as a stand.

The last stage is to blow off the ball or ball. If the ball has a nipple, press it with a thin wire, releasing air. Take out the dropped ball. That's all, you can thread the lamp inside and test the lampshade.

The technology is the same, but the appearance is very different…

According to the technology described above, it is possible to make not only round shades. Rectangular, triangular, trapezoidal. Choose a base that is easy to remove, wrap threads soaked in glue, braid, even sticks, newspaper tubes, etc. After drying, remove the base and, behold, you have made a lampshade with your own hands. A couple of examples in the photo below.

You can also use chopsticks... Just wrap the ball with cling film too and use not PVA glue, but transparent carpentry

It's a paste-like polymer clay in a tube that's been applied to a milk carton, then dried and the bag removed...

Creative homemade shades for lamps, floor lamps and chandeliers

You just wonder what people don’t make beautiful and unusual things from. Plafond from a cup, grater, bottle, beer or glass can, metal parts and beer can rings ... It seems that everything can be used ...

Lampshade from an old sieve ... stylish

Candlesticks turn into lamps ... without lampshades

You can’t tell in life, but these shades are made of hooks used to open metal cans for drinks and canned food… if they are painted, it will be even more interesting

Don't know what to do with grandma's crystal? Make plafonds out of it ...



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