Upcycling vintage tech

A ’70S CLASSIC IS GIVEN A CONTEMPORARY ELECTRONIC MAKEOVER

Restoring and putting modern components into a rare Brionvega desk lamp

Introduction

For our second vintage appliance upcycling project in The Shed, I decided to work on an iconic Italian appliance from the mid ’70s, a Brionvega desk lamp.

When I bought this lamp I was captivated by the design, so I decided to upcycle it, retaining the original style but trying to make it even better by updating it with contemporary technology.

The project itself is relatively easy in terms of electronic modifications, and the challenge is to achieve the upgrade with minimal changes to the original design aesthetic. This makes the project more complex of course, but I always follow the same principles: every upcycling project needs to use the space available inside the device without adding any external parts or components, or making major changes to the design. The removal of the unused original components inside should not compromise the structure and functionality.

Designing and making

I decided to change the lighting features of the lamp, adding a sensing device and a linear light-intensity regulator.

Digital control of the new features can be easily achieved with an Arduino board. Due to the limited space available inside the base of the lamp, I opted for an Arduino Nano. The Nano version has the same characteristics of the traditional Arduino Uno and the same GPIO pins, but it is smaller. One of the most important aspects of this upcycling project is the dramatic reduction of the lamp’s power consumption, providing better lighting and transforming the appliance from analogue to digital.

Testing reliability

One of the biggest differences between almost any kind of electronic device made before the late ’80s and one produced since then is the working voltage and power consumption, so I had to test the reliability of a set of highefficiency, low-power LEDs to replace the original yellowish 12V lamp.

The typical low voltage reference for lamps, radios, and a lot of electronic devices of the era was 12V, but the new version of the Brionvega lamp should work at 5V. However, I also wanted to power it with a standard USB port and this meant keeping the power needed for the entire circuit under the standard 500mA.

I decided to make a grid of 12 white LEDs to provide good-quality light. All the LEDs are connected in parallel to an NPN 2N2222 transistor, acting as a micro relay controlled by an Arduino pulse-with-modulation (PWM) output pin, and eventually amplify the Arduino 5V output powering the LEDs.

Time to open it up

After testing, I found that 104mA was sufficient for the whole circuit, with the light set at maximum power, so a standard USB connection to any device (laptop, smartphone, portable power bank, USB charger) should work well.

The first step was opening the lamp and removing the original bulb and power supply, an internal 220V AC to 12V DC transformer controlled by an on-off switch.

After removing the transformer, which is also the biggest component of the lamp, almost all the base box was empty for my new installation.

I made a full working prototype on a breadboard, with the associated circuit design, to test the parts of the circuit and programmed the Arduino Nano before assembling the new version of the lamp.

Replacement parts

The second upcycling step consisted of designing and 3D printing the replacement parts: the LED grid support that should fit into the rounded rectangle of the lamp head, and the slider button that would replace the on-off switch on the lamp base.

These objects, as usual designed with Fusion 360, had to be very precise, so I decided to use the Elegoo LCD resin 3D printer instead of the PLA filament printer. The resin 3D printer provides a smaller printing volume compared with the 200x200x200mm of the filament printer, but it can reach a precision of 0.05 or less, almost a factor of 10 in the fusion filament technology I use to print bigger 3D components.

To keep an eye on the project’s environmental impact, for the first time I used the brand new Elegoo washable grey resin. While this product has the same qualities as traditional resin, the 3D prints can be cleaned using water, drastically reducing the pollution problems inherent in cleaning the parts with isopropyl alcohol.

Internal components and switch

I assembled the Arduino Nano electret microphone used as a tap sensor for the light on a small breadboard printed circuit board (PCB). This, along with the slider and the extra switch, all fit inside the lamp base. I hot-glued the new assembled internal components to keep them in place.

I placed the switch selector to enable or disable the tap sensor on the outside of the bottom of the base so that it does not alter the lamp’s design aesthetic.

After testing and building the 3D components on a breadboard, I started to assemble the upcycled version.

I used the brand new Elegoo washable grey resin … the 3D prints can be cleaned using water, drastically reducing the pollution problems inherent in cleaning the parts with isopropyl alcohol

The first part of the loop function — executed every cycle — checks if the light control (the slider potentiometer, or dimmer) changed its position. Using the analogue value of the dimmer, the corresponding intensity value is calculated, mapping the dimmer range to the intensity levels range. The dimmer range corresponds to the analogue values read from the analogue input A0, while the intensity levels correspond to the PWM value set to the output pin connected to the transistor.

Note that if the dimmer value is under the lower range, the lamp intensity is set to zero (light off), while if the value is higher than the max value, the intensity is set to the max value. This solution avoids the light flickering when set to off, or to a higher intensity.

The second part is controlled by the sensor activation switch.

if(digitalRead(MIC_CONTROL_PIN) == true)

{ [Electret microphone tap sensor reading] }

If the switch pin defined on the GPIO by the MIC_CONTROL_PIN is set to on, the updated light intensity level is applied only if the user who taps the microphone sensor has powered the lamp, otherwise the light intensity level is forced to zero (light off).

The light intensity is set every cycle with the PWM instruction:

analogWrite(LIGHT_PIN, intensity)

The sketch source is available as usual on GitHub

The lamp lighting my desk, powered by the laptop via the USB port

The original ’70s vintage Italian Brionvega desk lamp

Detail of the base of the pole light head. Note the sliding contacts: the internal wire will be connected to the positive wire and the external wire will be connected to the ground circuit

Above: The full working prototype created on a breadboard before assembling the lamp. The prototype breadboard was also used to write the software and test the power required by the entire circuit

Below: Disassembling the internal parts. The base of the lamp hosts a 200V AC to 12V DC transformer, as shown in the illustration details. By removing the transformer power group and fuse, the power connections to the lamp light support pole can be reused to power the LEDs

Below: Removing the transformer and desoldering the low-power wires leaves all the space inside the lamp body free. The connectors to the pole light head have been restored, removing the oxide to get better contacts

Above: The head lamp holder should also be removed. The pole top connectors are soldered to the new LED matrix power wires

Top left: A 3D-rendering of the dimmer button that replaced the original on-off switch Top right: A 3D-rendering of the white LED support that replaces the bulb from the original lamp which keeps the 12 LEDs in place in a four-by-three matrix Middle: I 3D-printed the STL with a high precision Elegoo 3D LCD resin printer Right: Once the print is completed, the resin should be stabilized by exposing the printed object to a 480nm UV source lamp for about one hour. After the stabilization, the LED support is painted to reflect the light