Contemporary Light

I ordered this touch switch.

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I am hoping to mount this in the base with the LED next to it or on top. Then I will just touch the metal housing to turn on/off. If this proves to be unreliable I will just go with a mini toggle.

Robert
 
If you are looking at low wattage LED's, a constant current source isn't required. A simple dropping resistor or a dropping resistor in series with a variable resistor if you want a dimmable light will work well. You not have the efficiency of a constant current source but for a watt or two, it's not significant White LED's typically run on 3 to 3.5 volts. A 1 watt LED will draw about 300 ma. If a 6 volt D.C. wall wart were used, a dropping resistor of 8 - 10 ohms would limit the maximum current to around 300 ma. Adding a 100 ohm potentiometer in series would allow dimming to about 10% of maximum brightness. Total power drawn would be less than 2 watts.

State of the art LED's are running about 140 lumens/watt with 100+ lumens/watt common. As a benchmark a 60 watt incandescent bulb produces about 800 lumens.
 
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I got the touch switch and set up a test circuit:

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It works very well. Now I can just tap the light housing to turn it on or off. Thanks MKSJ! It has 3 brightness settings. I used a high intensity LED with a 1K resistor and it provides about the right intensity. I can always add LEDs if I want more brightness.

Robert
 
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I finally got around to finishing this project:

It has a very dim blue LED that is on all the time so you can find the light at night:
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It uses a 3 stage touch switch and you can touch anywhere on the light to change the brightness:

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That is the brightest setting. I ended using an LED from a Maglite. I think this will work great! I hope you like the look.

Robert
 
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