Arch

Arch was a 3d printed light similar to many found online. I don't recall which model I modified to make it, so I can't give the proper attribution I would like to. This was my main bench light for about a year so so before I took it apart to reuse the LEDs elsewhere. It looked really cool, and was great at getting shadows out of my work space, but it was tippy and a bit more fragile than it looked, so away it went.

Photogenic though.

The design was fairly simple. Lots of identical nesting 12" or so sections. I used a high density led strip (144/m) for this as I wanted it to be BRIGHT. I ran heavy gauge wire through the body of it to inject power along the run to combat voltage drop. The diffuser is just some lightweight white packing foam, similar to what the wood pieces of mid-low end furniture is wrapped in for shipping. Honestly, though, this thing was so bright the diffuser could have been black construction paper. It was powered by a 5v @ 40a DC supply that also powered a few other things in my workshop. I ran it around 10-15% brightness most of the time.

I had programmed a couple dozen effects into it. I did the rainbow thing much of the time it was on, but was definitely handy to have when I needed something brighter.

I ended up employing a few strategies to increase the durability. One end was screwed to the table, the other could pivot a little. It was probably around 6-7' wide. The chassis was printed with rainbow colored PLA - I wanted to put an emphasis on the arch shape, and rainbows are arches, so it made sense at the time.

I miss this guy a bit, but I don't know where I would put it today.

This article is part of a series on LED Art as I attempt to document all of the different LED projects I have built over the years.
More will be added as time goes on. The list of currently available articles can be found here: https://dzw.zentormey.com/tag/leds/