Atomic Modern ~ Sunday, April 25, 2021

For years I've used this (originally) fluorescent desk lamp on my workbench, which was surplus from my father-in-law's office.

Recently it stopped working, and a little testing made it clear it was not just that the tubes were worn out. I decided to open it up and see if I could fix it.

I quickly decided I wasn't going to mess with that!

But a little online research showed that this surplus piece of office equipment was now old enough to count as an antique. Apparently midcentury/atomic-modern is now hip and people are asking $150 or more for this exact lamp (Mind you, I'm not saying that they're getting that much--and you can also find it listed for more like $30).

I decided to keep the fixture for the retro 50's/60's styling but retrofit it with 21st century LED's. I found some short chainable linear lights, designed to go under cabinets, and chained them in parallel to more or less recreate the original layout of the tubes. They're attached via a small board (as in wood) and some angle brackets.

The original push-button power swith was part of a mechanism that did some complicated stuff that fluorescent tubes need when they start up, which you can read about on Wikipedia if you're interested. I didn't need that anymore so I just put in a toggle power switch (intended for use on heavy-duty shop equipment I think). At some point I'd like to plug the other hole with something classier than the current random nut+bold+washer that I found around the garage.

Anyway, back in business!