Magnifier Lamp

A magnifier lamp to help with SMD work, made with scrap materials and 3D printed parts.
Magnifier Lamp, Work in Progress
I've tried to use as much as possible from my "scrap box". The aluminium components are things I cast from old hard disks back in 2008. The base was found dumped outside a furniture shop by Euston, I squared it up with a saw and surform before drilling, sanding and varnishing. The arms were from an old garden parasol that had got worn out by the weather. I believe they are teak. They were planed and sanded to size before drilling. These will likely be left in a natural finish. The 3D parts are designed using OpenSCAD and printed with a Cel Robox printer.

Magnifier Lamp – Wiring up and finishing off

Magnifier Lamp - Wiring up and finishing off

Once the switch and socket were added the lamp was pretty much looking finished. However there were a couple of jobs to finish off. The base need a bit of varnish, the switch and socket needed wiring and the cables

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Magnifier Lamp – Heavy metal, shiny metal

Magnifier Lamp - Heavy metal, shiny metal

I did a test assembly of my magnifier lamp and at full extension it toppled over. So a quick redesign of the base was needed. I carved out the inside with drills and chisels, and filled it up with molten

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LED Jig

LED Jig

The magnifier lamp has 24 LEDs and the housing is plastic so I did not want to solder them up in place. To simplify the assembly a wooden jig was made by drilling 3 hole through the head. An LED

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Magnifier Lamp – Printing the head

Magnifier Lamp - Printing the head

The main part of the magnifier lamp is the head, after a few variants of design I ended up with something I was happy to print. I loaded the 25x140x160mm model into Automaker and selected the fine option. 36 minutes

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Three cornered thumb-wheels

Three cornered thumb-wheels

To clamp my magnifier lamp in place I’ve bought some nice stainless steel bolts with half thickness nuts. This means that the nuts are roughly the same size as the heads giving it symmetry. I’ve also made some thumb-wheels /

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Magnifier Lamp – Design and test

Magnifier Lamp - Design and test

For an upcoming project I wanted to build some circuit boards and the main component only came as a surface mounted device (SMD). I asked the members of the Element14 community what they would recommend regarding tools for SMD components.

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