Articulating Lamp Arms

[Nates]

I know lots of people have these, but I bought one from Amazon and decided it was too small/short armed. My son stole it for his electronics workbench. I bought another one with more light and 15" arm segments. Its almost big enough, but the kicker is the bottom joint/back swing.

Basically I built a backsplash for my HF tool chest to hold my lathe, and these lamps can't seem to dip below whatever height the base is mounted at. Also when put out of the way, the arm needs to go back and so if I mount it to the backsplash down low so the magnifier lamp can reach the cross slide, the arm can't swing out of the way.

A cursory search hasn't yielded anything promising. Is there a different type of lamp arm perhaps? Alternative mount? Do i need to look at articulating camera arms instead?

Has anyone else struggled with this and found a solution?

 

[toprecyler]

Not sure if this would work, or might inspire a different solution for you. I made several of these mounts in high school machine shop class 33 years ago. We had to do a project to include the alum foundry we had. Worked out pretty well for an 18 year old kid.




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[Nates]

Hmm that gives me an idea. Monitor arms are pretty cheap and sturdy. Unfortunately what i have laying around is armless, mounts to the pole but I have some square tube I can drill and make that last articulating joint I need that'd give me the extra swing arm needed to put the lamp arm I have almost anywhere, as well as adjustable height.

 

[larry4406]

Does this give you any ideas?

https://www.amazon.com/Lawind-Loading-Mounting-Rotatable-Temporary/dp/B07YJRK72Q?th=1

 

[wayback machine]

Does this give you any ideas?

https://www.amazon.com/Lawind-Loading-Mounting-Rotatable-Temporary/dp/B07YJRK72Q?th=1

I have one like that (pre-LED, though), mounted up on the wall at the end of my "big" lathe - I bought 2 of them at a flea market, for $15 each.
It works great - I can aim the beam right at the chuck, with nothing getting in the way of work.

 

[RJSakowski]

I have three of the articulated arm lighted magnifiers, all over 25 years old. All three are capable of lowering to about a foot below thw base. Two are mounted on lathes and one on a workbench. The lathe lights are mounted at the rear of the lathe at the tailstock end.

A newer led lighted magnifier has shorter arms and won't go below the base. The bottom pivot is designed differently. I suspect yours is similar in design. A picture of your light would help for making suggestions.

One thought would be mounting the base one vertical rod so that you could move the base up or down. I made custom bases to replace the flimsy plastic bases anyway as the plastic bases all broke. Another thought would be to make the mount for the base so it can pivot, tilting the whole assembly down. Last but not least would be to redesign the lower joint so it does drop the light lower. I could furnish photos of what is working for me. It does depend on the arm lengths and middle pivot though.