Bodgering part deux

Here's installment #2 of my lightbashing adventure. Tonight I cut up the track into sections to attach to my lighting grid (or wherever) so I can pop these awesome little track lights in them. I used a normal sabersaw with a metal cutting blade - it took a bit of doing, but I was able to cut through the track even with all the crazy parts inside it. As you can see above, there's quite a bit of stuff crammed in there too! And one thing I learned the hard way is it's loose and wants to slide out from vibrations as you're sawing.


So I taped it in place. Simple solutions are my favorites! Then I was able to saw away to my heart's content without worries.


I only had two endcaps, so I used them on one piece of track. The rest had to be bodgered as shown below.


Hotglue to the rescue! Not sure if you can see it here, but I gobbed hotglue all over each end to hold the profile pieces in place. I also filed down the sharp edges really well so I can't gash myself on them.


And finally (another simple solution) - I just gaffer taped the pieces of track to my grid. It's a breeze to pop a light in or out in a jiffy.


But wait!!!! A bit of a problem. Look at all that spill light!!! That could really wreak havoc in an intricately lit set.


That must be the reason Solux makes these nifty bulb shields...


And sells these "black-back bulbs" (for twice the price of a normal one!!!).


But not for me - oh no! Remember what I said about simple solutions (applies to inexpensive ones too)? A cone-shaped piece of blackwrap around the bulb does just as good (and costs quite a bit less). It remains to be seen though what kind of heat buildup it might cause - I wonder about heat buildup with the bulb shields and black-back bulbs as well actually. It seems like blackwrap wouldn't be any worse than a bulb shield.

And speaking of heat buildup - I notice after one of these lights is on for a while I start smelling this sort of hot plastic odor. It took a while before I realized.... the heat is softening my hotglue fillets that hold the extension cords in place! Oh man.... I might have to do something about that. Bears thinking about anyway.

I've ordered my Solux Framing Art Light kit (just the necessary parts to convert one of my lights if possible) and can hardly wait for it to come in! It's ridiculous how exciting something like this can be! I'll post the third and (hopefully) final part of this adventure when it comes in. See ya then!

Bodgering bodgering bodgering.....

Hi kids! Tonight I bodgered my track light kit! (It's one of those British words - and yes, it is legal!) The plan is to liberate them from the track, so each unit has its own power and can be placed wherever I want. Above you see what they look like opened up - inside is the transformer itself plus two red wires and a green wire. I happen to know the green wire is the ground, but had to trace the path of electricity to work out which red wire goes to positive and which to negative. You can see in the picture above where I marked them - one with a black sharpie and one with white tape. Then I cut off the wires. Man, that green wire is short!!! I knew that one would give me trouble later on....


Now I've drilled a hole through the side of the plastic casing for the cord to pass through. I picked up some 13 amp grounded utility cords with pre-stripped wires coming out the end, along with a pack of those little orange twist-connector things. It's a tight fit, but the three connectors can be jammed down into the existing space inside the casing. And yes, those little green wires gave me hell!!! But I managed.


After getting everything connected I gobbed hotglue all around the hole I drilled - inside and out, basically to form a solid fillet around the end of the cord to keep it secured in place. If it manages to slide out I don't have any faith in those little connectors holding all the weight of the cord! Finally I replaced the lid, sealing it all together again into its attractive contemporary housing.

I did it this way because I plan to cut short sections of the track and gaffer tape them wherever I want one of the light fixtures - then I can just twist the fixture into place with a satisfying click! Not sure this is the best plan - I thought about cutting the little cord that runs between the transformer and the lighting unit itself so I could separate the fixture from the transformer housing, but if I did that the connections wouldn't be tucked away inside a nifty casing - they'd be right out in the open for all to see. Hmmm.... unless I got myself a soldering iron and tried to do it right at the connection to the printed circuit board itself.... something to consider for the future maybe.

Anyway, it worked like a charm!!! These lights are bright and white as can be! Quite satisfying after the rather dim orangey Par-16 birdies I bought from Musician's Friend recently. Oh sorry - I meant to mention those before now. The price is definitely right - $30 for a pair of these cool-looking little lights (and though the website mistakenly reports that they don't come with filter holders, I can tell you happily that they actually DO). These run on full mains power - 120 volts as opposed to the 12 volt track lights. The Par 16 birdies are a bit dim - they're 50 watt fixtures. Premiere Lighting (which I've recently added to my links on the right) carries 75 watt par 16's that I'd like to try out.

And yeah, I know I'm accumulating quite a stash of lights. That's the point - I want to have enough on hand at any time to supply whatever crazy lighting situation I dream up. I'm thinking about getting 3 more of the track light units at some point - they seem like excellent little powerhouses that can be fully tailored with the accessories found at the Solux site.


I decided to add a bit here to explain how I traced the electric lines. This little widget is the twist lock connector that pops in one end of the track and gets connected to the mains power. It fits into the track the same way the light units do - push it in....


And twist 90 degrees.


Here you can clearly see there are three metal tabs on top. One on the left and two on the right. These tabs make contact inside the track with copper strips that run the full length of the track. If you look closely, you can see the black wire goes to the side with only one tab, while the white wire goes to the side with two tabs.


Here's the "lid" from one of the tracklight units. As you can see, it has the same three metal tabs to fit into the track. I wish I had gotten a pic of marking the wires before i cut them all off, but this will have to do. I'm making a black mark here on the (red) wire that goes into the side with one tab.


See.... takes a lot of explaining, but really pretty simple. I really don't know which is positive and which is negative (not sure those terms even really apply - I've heard one is actually called the hotwire and the other is called the neutral wire). But it's not important to know that - you only need to know which wire to connect where, and now we have that vital info. Once you've marked the black wire, there's no need to mark the other one - just think of it as the *unmarked* wire, and it represents the white one. the wire you just marked with the black marker attaches to the black wire in the power cord - the unmarked one attaches to the white wire, and (simple enough) the green wire attaches to the green wire. - Am I overexplaining now?

Transformer-thon 2007!!!!

No, it's nothing to do with the current mega-smash hit movie Transformers, though it is kind of ironic that it happens to coincide with my own delving into the mysteries and lore of the humble 12-volt transformer.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, all my posts lately have dealt with lighting - I've decided it's time to learn new tricks and to upgrade the lighting department in the Darkstudio. And most recently my questing has led me to low voltage lighting, which requires a transformer to step down household current to 12 volts. I bought this track lighting kit from Lamps Plus


which now sits assembled (mostly) and waiting for the coup-de-grace - I intend to bodger it so I have three separate lighting units rather than all of them on one track. Here's a thread on the message board going into more detail if anyone's interested. It's Nick to the rescue once again!

But wait - It gets even better...

This my friends is the Solux Framing Projector - a thing of great beauty and magnificence!



See, the separate components all fit together on a quite ordinary track lighting fixture, in fact exactly like the ones I have sitting next to me right now! How awesome is that??!! Theoretically (assuming the snout piece fits correctly) I should be able to just buy the accessories and fit them onto one of my existing units and I can *transform* it into a super-sexy micro-gobo projector! A sort of poor-man's ellipsoidal spotlight in a miniaturized size (perfect for my needs!) - AND at a miniaturized price!!

Also note that Solux makes probably the finest bulbs in the world (at the same price as ordinary bulbs) - you can buy them in various color temps including fully-balanced daylight with ultra-low IR and UV emissions. What this means is, no more weird orangey or blueish light - unless that's what you want! Also note - one advantage of low-voltage lighting is that the transformer effectively stabilizes the current (I believe) - so hopefully flicker and surges are a thing of the past.

Probably the biggest difference between this device and a real projector unit is that it isn't made to accept slides or gobos of any kind - and in fact I rather doubt it can be made to project them clearly, since it uses a typical MR-16 bulb, not the single-point projector style bulb with a polished reflector behind it like you find in a slide projector. But it will definitely project a shaped beam of very coherent light, and as Tennessee Reid Norton said in a recent comment, "where you DON'T put light is just as important as where you put it" (or something to that effect - sorry if I screwed it up).

And coming soon on the Transformer-thon 2007 front, I intend to get ahold of a dollhouse style lighting kit to use as onset practicals! Fun stuff!