TARDIS - Creating LED top light...

I really want this to be efficient, so I am creating an LED fueled top lamp. My thought after much research is to take a circular container smaller than the fresnel lamp and cover it with dense LEDs. I used as my components a soda can, some outdoors double-sided tape, 1 string of LEDs (about 15 feet in length)

 http://www.amazon.com/Flexible-LED-Ribbon-LEDwholesalers-2026ww-31k/dp/B002QQ48TK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319747332&sr=8-1

a 12 volt power supply and some glue.

 

 

So here it is! My thought is to cut these strips (sizeable to 2" lengths) and place them in a tight spiral around the can. At first, I thought the can was a bit small, here is my test demo:

When I completed it, it looked like this:

This ended up being closer, but when I tested the device it needed a bit more light. I thought if I added another layer of double-sided tape and wound the ribbon so it overlapped itself it would add a bit more light (added almost 5 feet in ribbon to the can actually)!

 

With that one alteration made, I glued it to the wooden spar on the bottom of the lamp using 2 screws to fasten the retaining spar to the lamp:

Here it is in action (about the light equivalent of about 100 watts of light from a regular bulb. Very bright!