Welcome to Provide Your Own - led lighting


DIY Desklamp – from a Pizza Box!

By Scott Daniels | Published: May 14, 2013
cardboard-desklamp

Here at Provide Your Own, we love LED lighting. We also believe the best use of LED lighting is by making your own custom fixtures rather than going out to buy a manufactured light bulb.

An Italian company has the same idea. They have a product where you make your own LED desklamp from a pizza box. In the great spirit of open source, they even provide downloadable plans for cutting and folding your own.

Their version of the lamp uses only a 4″ LED strip for illumination. That comes out to about 60 lumens or the output of a 4 watt bulb. We recommend using at least a 12″ strip (cut into two 6″ pieces), which would provide about 180 lumens or 12 watts equivalent.

Here’s what you need to build your own:

For your convenience, we offer a complete kit (no soldering required) for only $24.95 (over 30% saving over buying the parts separately).

You don’t have to be limited to cardboard either. It is simple to repurpose an … Read the rest

Posted in Energy, Household | Tagged | Section: | Leave a comment

Novel Ideas for LED Lighting

By Scott Daniels | Published: January 13, 2013
agbar_tower

This article describes some wonderful new applications envisioned for LED lighting. While many of the links don’t work, it still contains some great photos of LEDs being used for decorating buildings, night-time gardens and more.

I can’t help commenting on the article’s main premise – that LEDs will lead to greater energy use than incandescent lights. This is absolutely true, but it is not a bad thing. As pointed out in their excellent book any time energy efficiencies are achieved, greater energy use is the result. The main reason for this effect is because of new applications found for the new technology. LEDs are a perfect example.

Some might be saying, “but we are in an energy crisis, don’t we need to conserve energy?” The answer is that the energy situation might be in a state of flux right now, we are in no way in a shortage. The US is on the verge of developing massive petroleum deposits which will make it a leading producer in a few years, and the price of solar is dropping to the point where powering our lights and appliances is now at the point that almost everyone can afford it – even the … Read the rest

Posted in Energy | Tagged | Section: | 1 Response