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LED Book-Light Suggestions?
Dormous asks: "My wife and I are both night owls and avid readers, and usually one of us goes to bed before the other, hence the need for a small portable light source. We recently had a booklight, and somehow, my wife managed to shatter the light bulb all over the bed. Therefore, I want to find a booklight that uses an LED as the Light Source. Anybody got any ideas where I can find such a thing. I've already tried ThinkGeek."
Most of these little clip-on booklights take two HP7 (AA) batteries, giving 3v. Remove the incandescent bulb (or bits of, in your case). Solder a high-brightness white LED in place of the incandescent bulb, and add a series resistor in there somewhere. You'll need to work out a suitable value - some LEDs may not need one at all.
Another handy mod is to use a fairly bright red LED instead of white. This will make a light that's great for reading maps and star charts at night (for you navigators or astronomers) that won't mess with your dark adaption.
I'd Suggest the SPRACHT SP1022 Wherever Light UB.r -ligh ts.htm
http://www.spracht.com/wherever-gear/whereve
The Spracht light uses a flexible gooseneck led lamp like the unit described, but it terminates in a coaxial power connector. The connector connects to three adaptors:
-A USB adaptor for laptops
-A Cigarette Lighter adaptor for the car
-A 3 AA battery pack with belt clip (Handy for repair work)
If you need to run the unit with mains power it should be readily achived by rigging a gender bender for a AC transformer 'wall wart'
Very solid construction with good light distribution. The NV unit is the same but it has a Red LED for retaining night vision (dim green is actually better for retaining night vision but that's another matter).
The switch is located at the "bulb" end which is handy for reading. The belt hook should clip to most book covers.
All for $20 at Fry's.
Alternatively, there are cigarette lighter and mains adapters for USB powered connectors (particularly for PDA chargers). This is handy for illumination in tight spaces (I use a similar arrangement for lighting my expresso machine).
I don't normally bitch about Ask Slashdot... but for crying out loud, either this guy didn't actually look at Think Geek, or he must have missed the "Gadgets" section, where the LightWedge is a "Geek Pick".
Corporate Jenga: You take a blockhead from the bottom and you put him on top...
I can't get to sleep at night without reading, and this used to really bother my roommate (who has a hard time getting to sleep if it's not dark). I got a LightWedge for Christmas, and it's helped a lot. It really doesn't noticeably illumine anything except the page. However, there are some caveats:
1. You need to keep the batteries fresh and the surface really clean, or you'll hurt your eyes trying to read with too little light.
2. It's inconvenient for books with a page surface larger than it or for books with extremely thin pages (I can't use it for my Bible because the very light pages stick to the wedge by static and end up creasing badly when I try to turn the page).
Correction: www.campmor.com