Let there be Light!

Same concept … more tubes connected in a vaguely cube-shaped object.

This was my initial attempt and to be honest it does its job better than I had been expecting.

oh … and none of this is glued together at the moment.
The tight fit of the tubes is apparently good enough.

I was going to glue it together once I was certain the thing was finished, but as I’m moving ‘soon’ I figured I’d rather keep it like this. I only need to make sure I document the dissassembly process for obvious reasons.

Dedicated pvc glue is what you’re going to need to fix this contraption in a more permanent format.

Clearing space was easy … well … sort of.

Once I had done so I discovered one thing : I had light … but it wasn’t enough.

One way of adding more light is a desktop light, but I noticed that they were filling valuable real estate while offering not enough light in return. A daylight bulb did improve the quantity, but the thing was a bit too much in my face.

Solution ?
Well … I remember Warzan building a frame and adding lights to that.

I’ve build something similar … using the most basic (and maybe unlikely) construction material I could find in a DIY store : 32mm diameter PVC tubes.

You can use the 2-3 meter lenghts of pvc tube, but the 1 meter tubes were easier to handle and none of the parts needed to be over 1 meter in lenght. It probably would have been a more efficient use of material, but transportation of the longer pieces was tricky without access to a car.

A basic saw was all I needed to cut the pieces to the desired lenghts.

I’ve used two Ikea Mittled 60cm kitchen worktop lights (and associated bits and pieces), but in hindsight I probably should have picked 2 x 40cm and one 60cm.

If you need something closer to daylight then I’d recommend the Philips Hue lightstrips. They are more expensive, but they do provide better light.

One thing I noticed is that it is kind of hard to find motivation.

Having to clear what little space I had next to my computer meant that I rarely had enough energy to do anything hobby related as I got distracted by things.

So 2023 was going to be the year I was going to make an effort and I sort of got started, but then life had to throw a spanner in the works as I finally found a house I could afford. This also means that I now have the opportunity to make something closer to the ideal instead of tinkering with the little space I had.

I did manage to make a few tiny but important improvements to my hobby space.

• clear out space on my desk and reserve it for hobby
• add more lights to make assembly easier
• clear out additional space for painting
• add more lights to that so I could see what I was trying to paint