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."

Comments

ob. Simpsons Reference

[Ratso Baggins]

Umm...try this...

Simple homebrew solution

[Gordonjcp]

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.

Re:Simple homebrew solution

[LogicFlow]

red + map = bad. Unless you get a map specificly for it, or use one that just happens to not have any red labels.

Re:Simple homebrew solution

[n9hmg]

Mini maglights use a tiny bulb with straight parallel leads stuck in a pair of holes... just about the configuration of a standard LED. Buy a minimaglight, a 2.9something volt LED, and a pair of NiMH AA cells. I suggest the NiMH more for the lower voltage than for rechargeability. That lets you skip trying to fit in a resistor, which I've never managed. LEDs leads tend to be a hair skinnier than the ones on the lamps, so you will probably have to knurl them. I just lightly "bite" them, with vise-grips.

Pull the lamp out just enough to expose a bit of lead without disconnecting it, and use your VOM to see the polarity. Remove the bulb and gouge a little pit at the positive side.
Cut the LED leads to match the bulb.
Test fit. If it doesn't come on, knurl the leads and try again.
You'll probably have to ream out the reflector a little, as the LED is probably slightly bigger around than the bulb.

Mine's lasted for 3 years now, and goes about 20 hours on a charge.
I've seen little LED hiking lights recently, at Eastern Mountain Sports, for not much more than what I've got in the homebrew, though. They're smaller and brighter than mine, and they come with an elastic headband, which is awfully convenient. Most of them, though, use non-standard batteries, so the cost may get out of hand. I just don't know about that part.
I just figured I'd provide something a little kinder, though really less helpful, than what everybody else is probably suggesting.

Re:Simple homebrew solution

[walt-sjc]

I wouldn't use NiMH for this application due to the batteries characteristics. NiMH lose somewhere around 5% of their charge every day just sitting there. High capacity NiCads work just fine and the voltage is lower yet. They are also cheaper. Using them in an application like this you shouldn't have a "memory effect" problem either. NiMH, like Li-ion, are great for high-drain devices.

But I like your idea. That's the way to go!

Low tech solution.

[jotaeleemeese]

If one of you is sleeping, the other reads elsewhere.

At first signs of sleep depravation go to bed.

Re:Low tech solution.

[SeanAhern]

Or deprivation, even! :-)

You'd think that anything that involved depravation might include his wife. ;-)

flylight

[Hadlock]

kensington flylight + 5v wall wart + radioshack toggle switch + 10 min of soldering + epoxying the whole mess to the old booklight's clip

=

good early evening project, at the cost of about $20 (you can find flylights @ the apple store and compUSA), and cannibalizing the awnsering machine's wall wart.

Demotechs' Nightreader

[SisterRay]

Demotech ("Design for self-reliance") is currently working on the Nightreader.

It's a small piece of reflecting foil, put together with two leds sticked in wood and a couple of batteries. The Nightreader is designed to be able to use two or three batteries of various sizes (whatever you have at hand) which have to little power to be used for something else.

A Headlamp might work

[priceb]

Petzl sells a small light weight led headlamp called the tikka. This might solve your problem.

Astronomers nightlight

[laughing_badger]

Try the store at Sky and Telescope. They sell LED flashlights with red leds. They are really restfull on the eyes when reading in bed and will not keep your partner awake. They are also small enough to prop-up somewhere to illuminate your book.

No luck at Think Geek?

[skinfitz]

Now try Google

Uh... ThinkGeek does have these

[highcaffeine]

Right Here.

I have two of these, bought through ThinkGeek, and they're great. Both of mine are still on the first set of batteries.

LED replacement bulb

[Kent_Franken]

You can convert any flashlight to LED. These guys have a nifty little LED flashlight replacement bulb in all the normal colors. You can buy one here

Re:Simple homebrew solution - Why bother?

[lanroth]

You can buy LEDs that screw into a standard bulb fitting.
This webside is crammed with all kinds of useful information regarding LEDs and LED torches. Check it out.

Black Diamond Ion Headlamp

[randyjparker]

The ideal booklight does not constrain your position, allowing you to roll from side to side without changing the page illumination. This means it has to be either mounted on the book, or your head. If it is on the book, it inevitably interferes with turning the pages, and it adds weight. So my vote is for a headlamp.

A headlamp should be not too bright, and provide uniform lighting across the page. This eliminates single LED lights.

The Black Diamond Ion weighs less than 1 oz, and has an easily adjusted wide elastic headband. In less than a minute, you forget you're wearing it. It has 2 LEDs, which provides a more uniform illumination than 1, but still projects bright spots on the page. (all LED lights do this, in my experience. I don't know why, or how much improvement can be expected in the near future). The battery is odd - a 6V that is a little bigger than the eraser on a pencil. It drives the light for far more than the rated 15-20 hours. My son lost his in the backyard the afternoon we went on a trip, and it was still going strong after we returned in the dark the next night. And he continues to use it reading in bed 30 min per night, several weeks later!! I don't know if rechargeables are available in the required size.

The Ion costs less than $20. It is either on or off, not dimmable. It has no auto-shutoff timer. But it is widely available, practically waterproof, and withstands being dropped without a problem.

See: http://www.backpackgeartest.org/reviews/Lighting

Lightwedge

[linuxwrangler]

Since you want us to use Google for you, how about the top sponsored link: http://www.lightwedge.com/

It's a flat LED illuminated sheet you lay on the page you are reading so the light doesn't shine on your partner.

Re:Lightwedge

[Anonymous Commando]

You mean the LightWedge that he couldn't find on ThinkGeek?

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".

Re:Sorry, I had to write this.....

[GrumpyOldMan]

I figure that must be how his wife broke the old light ;)

Spracht Wherever Lights

[monopole]

I'd Suggest the SPRACHT SP1022 Wherever Light UB.
http://www.spracht.com/wherever-gear/wherever -ligh ts.htm
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).

Lightwedge

[jensend]

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).

Re:Princeton Tec - Aurora LED Headlamp

[dughutch]

Correction: www.campmor.com

Re:Sorry, I had to write this.....

[Dormous]

Yes, exactly!