Make a chandelier in the Gzhel style with your own hands. DIY chandelier from scrap materials: detailed master classes

A chandelier in any room is no longer exclusively a lighting device. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is the piece of furniture that is the main decoration in any room.

Of course, a DIY chandelier will be especially valuable thing. This will not only highlight the special taste of the home owners, but also their creative mind.

Despite the fact that if you decide to make a lampshade with your own hands for a chandelier, you will need to spend quite a lot of effort, because the process requires special concentration - surely the work time cannot be considered wasted, since the work will bring incredible pleasure and will even leave a pleasant aftertaste, and in the future you will definitely want to repeat this kind of work again.

If you are thinking about how to make a chandelier, then you have probably already seen that today you can use the most various materials and sometimes completely unusual. For example, very often the lampshade for a chandelier is made of wood or glass.

However, if you want something even more incredible, then you can also use cardboard, wooden skewers, and even wine bottles. The choice here depends solely on the ideas that the creator has, as well as on various kinds of wishes of the apartment owners.

In addition, a chandelier from scrap materials must also be created taking into account the overall interior of the room.

Chandelier made from plastic spoons

Disposable spoons, which most people are used to using exclusively for picnics, can actually also be one of the simplest and yet easily accessible materials for creating an interesting chandelier option for any room.

If you look at a photo of a chandelier of this type, you will be struck first of all by the variety of colors, and in the future you can easily understand that the material will last a long time.

In addition, in order to create such an interesting piece of furniture, you will need a minimum of financial and material investments.

What materials will be needed?

Any empty plastic bottle. The only condition is that its volume cannot be less than five liters.
Any plastic spoons. Their number depends solely on the chosen size of the future chandelier.
Glue that allows you to glue plastic together.
A socket from an old, no longer working chandelier.

The process of creating an original chandelier

Prepare a plastic bottle. First of all, you need to get rid of the label and bottom, and also dry it properly.

Remove the spoons from the plastic and use a knife to remove any handles that are not needed. The only thing you need to do is leave a couple of centimeters above the so-called “scoop” level.

Glue the blanks to the base of the prepared bottle. On the “tail” that remains, you need to apply as much glue as possible and then press it to the surface.

It is very important to continue to cover the entire bottle in this way directly in a circle until the entire prepared perimeter is “occupied” with plastic spoons.

It is best to arrange them in a classic checkerboard pattern and move them slightly together.

This way it will be possible to reduce the number of “free spots” to a minimum.

The shade is removed from the old prepared chandelier and placed in a dried bottle.
If desired, decorative ones can often be done in a similar way.

That's all. All that remains is to install the chandelier in the chosen location, and also check its operation by connecting it to the power supply.

Another interesting chandelier option is a chandelier with decorative butterflies. It is worth noting that when going to almost any master class on making a chandelier, designers always offer to learn how to create it, which is not surprising, because it can fit perfectly into almost any interior of the room.

Note!

Besides that this option it looks truly luxurious and expensive, even a child can make it with the help of an adult, so its popularity is easily explained.

DIY chandelier photo

Note!

In this article we will figure out how to make a lamp with your own hands. IN initial publication cycle - - general quality requirements, methods of generating a luminous flux, as well as how to choose a light source and - safety first - the rules for connecting a stationary lamp to the electrical network were considered. From the previous article we learned how to make the main lighting parts of a lamp -. Now it's time to get to grips with the solid, reliable and beautiful structural foundation of it all.

About LEDs

LEDs as lighting sources are becoming increasingly popular: they are very economical, durable, and almost do not heat up, which provides ample opportunities for independent construction and design. In addition, low voltage power makes LED light sources safe. Therefore in this article a significant portion of the material is devoted to how to make your own LED lamp.

However, the quality of light from LEDs has not yet reached ideal: its spectrum is quite harsh. It can be softened using various lighting techniques, which was discussed in previous articles. But thanks low voltage supply a street or garden LED lamp can be made independently without special precautions, and can also be autonomous; then there is no need for extensive excavation work and cable laying on the site. In this section, we will focus more on LED lamps.

Some examples of what can be achieved by using lighting equipment with your own hands are shown in the photo. Anyone who knows how to use the Internet can create a similar collection “for ideas” or “for inspiration.” And here we will deal with things that are not so aesthetic: how to translate all this into material. Cheap, reliable and practical. Preferably at home, “on your knees.”

Materials, tools, equipment, technologies

To make a good lamp, you don’t need expensive and/or hard-to-find materials. Previous technologies are focused on incandescent lamps, which get very hot and consume a lot of current. Today's homemade products have economy lamps and LED lamps that emit little heat, which allows them to simplify the design.

To make a lamp that is not inferior in appearance or quality to industrial designs, we will need scraps of metal tubes, steel wire with a diameter of 1.5-2.5 mm, galvanized steel sheets 0.4-1 mm thick and pieces of plastic or inexpensive plastic products, see below. And in many cases, to achieve the desired result, it is possible to get by with unnecessary trash. Wood processing for complex lamp– this is a special case, and we won’t ignore it either.

Note: Good old glass should not be discounted either. Take a look, for example, at this master class: diy.ru/post/3916/. This is what you can achieve by working at home with such difficult material. There is just one small “but” - what the author of the product (a man, no doubt, very skillful and shrewd) calls cutting is actually edging. However, what to call it is a matter of literalists, but for the master it is enough for the thing to turn out good.

Quite simple, but tasteful

Examples of excellent lamps made from scrap materials, namely scraps of wood and paper, are the well-known Chinese lanterns, see fig. When using modern light sources, their fire hazard is negligible, much less than that of an electric kettle. The base is most often a slatted frame covered with paper, pos. 1. For the frame of the one in pos. 2, thin bamboo sticks (you can split an old fishing rod into strips) or the ends of modern fiberglass fishing rods are better suited; sold in fishing stores. The joints are wrapped with thread and glued. After pasting, the paper (preferably rice paper) is lightly sprayed with water from a spray bottle. Once dry, it will stretch. After this, the paper is varnished for strength.

A Chinese lantern can be made entirely of wood: chopsticks or table skewers (wooden rods on which shish kebab and kebab are served to the table). Both are made from light wood that reflects light quite well. And its slightly rough surface effectively scatters light, which softens it.

From chopsticks, placing their widened heads alternately left and right, side light-transmitting panels are assembled, pos. 3. Table skewers make good food. ceiling lamp for the kitchen or hallway, pos. 4. The ends of the sticks (they are made of soft wood) are simply pierced with a sewing needle with a fishing line threaded into it.

Plastics

But let's get back to the materials, we're not done with them yet. Excellent parts for chandeliers, table lamps and floor lamps (cups, caps, see below) are obtained from reusable plastic dishes– bowls, glasses, saucers: the rim on the bottom is carefully cut off or sanded off. Then this place is passed 2-3 times with increasingly fine sandpaper; the last pass is “velvet” and polished with felt and GOI paste. The decorative, lighting and technological (ease of processing) qualities of such parts are very good.

The second type of plastic, which allows you to make very original lamp(see figure) – polymer clay or just plastic. In terms of lighting properties, it is not inferior to light wood, and in a thin, 2-3 mm layer, it is translucent, like milk glass, i.e. softens the light very well.

Polymer clay is available in various colors, immediately plastic in plastic bags and bars, like plasticine. The latter are quite hard at first, but soften when kneaded. To speed up and facilitate softening, you need to put 3-4 drops on the bar vegetable oil, and start kneading when it is absorbed.

Lampshades are made from soft plastic on a frame greased with Vaseline. Immediately, if necessary, fill in the texture with a brush, at the bottom right in Fig. To obtain an openwork lampshade, cut off the tip of the package and squeeze out the mass into a sausage. After about a day, the product will dry, then you can, without removing it from the mandrel, cut out figures, scallops, and frills. The product dries completely in 3-7 days.

Bar plastic is used to make lamp stands. After molding the workpiece, it is baked in the oven at 120-130 degrees. When a brownish crust forms on the product, turn off the gas to a minimum and “bake” for another 1-3 hours, depending on the size of the part. It should cool completely in the oven, which is not advisable to open. The baked workpiece can be cut, sawed, drilled, polished, and painted. In this way, lamp bodies are sometimes not just original, but also quite piquant (see figure), and even frivolous to the point of decency, or even beyond it.

Ceramics

Since we're talking about stands, let's try to make a lamp from a bottle. Ceramic drink vessels designed by in-house designers deserve best use than garbage, moonshine or recyclables for pennies.

There are 2 problems here: stability and holes for cable entry and a switch. The first is solved with sand filled 2/3 or 3/4 into the bottle. To solve the second, it seems that you need a tubular diamond drill, which is expensive, wears out quickly, and requires a high-speed drilling machine. And we can do without all this:

Let's select a copper tube of a suitable diameter.
We will securely fix the vessel that we are going to drill so that the drill enters normally (perpendicular) to its surface in this place.
Around the site of the future hole we will mold a roller 4-6 mm high from plasticine.
Let's rub a couple of pieces of fine sandpaper against each other over a tray to get about a teaspoon of corundum powder.
Pour it into the hole and add 3-5 drops of machine oil - you can drill.

For drilling a drill clamped in a chuck copper tube It’s better to put it in a frame that turns it into a tabletop drilling machine. Such beds are sold in tool stores; the prices are divine, the benefits to the craftsman are invaluable. Moreover, you can buy a rotary table with a degree scale for the frame.

They drill into ceramics using copper and corundum using pushes: press a little - lift - press again - lift. The abrasive particles first eat into the copper and drill, but then immediately break off and crumble. Pulse drilling constantly renews the corundum “sputtering” on copper, and the oil prevents the powder from scattering and speeds up the work. The main thing is that the tube falls exactly into the already selected groove with each feed.

Electrical fittings

For a novice lighting technician, it is probably best to use sockets for lamps for a regular E27 base with fastening with union shaped nuts (threaded flanges); its designation begins with E27Н, and the drawing is shown in Fig. It will not be possible to attach such a cartridge, or a regular one with a skirt, with a threaded fitting in the lid: if you find an M10x1 or M12x1 die, then at home, using a hand crank, cutting a thread on a thin-walled tube without cutting through it or twisting it is very difficult, even with lubricant. For fastening with flanges you will have to make a fastening ring, as described in the article about lampshades, this is much simpler.

Note: if done Wall Light, in which the lamp is located along the base, then sockets with a side bar are usually used, see figure, but they are more expensive. In this case, you can also get by with a flange cartridge: bend an Ω-shaped clamp from the wire and attach it to the base with self-tapping screws.

The second thing you need is a screw terminal connector, or a terminal block, or just a terminal block, to connect the lamp to the wiring. For a chandelier, it is mandatory not only for ease of installation, but also according to safety requirements: suddenly the chandelier breaks, its thinner wires will break out of the terminal block, and the ceiling wiring will not be damaged, which will prevent an accident and ceiling-slotting repair work.

It is better to take the terminal block of the “comb” type, see figure:

These are compact, reliable, eliminate accidental short circuits, and by cutting jumpers between sections, it is easy to get a connector for the required number of wires. It is allowed to insert no more than 2 stranded wires with a copper cross-section of up to 1.4 square meters into each terminal. mm in total and no more than 1 single-core, regardless of the cross-sectional area of its current-carrying core.

About wooden lamps

Wood, on the one hand, is easy to process and looks solidly finished. On the other hand, to make an elegant wooden lamp, you will have to use some special technological techniques. Which we will consider.

Cable channels

The first problem that arises when making a wooden lamp is how to make cable channels in long parts. To do this, without special equipment, “on your knee,” you can use a wood drill with a narrowed 6-sided shank, see fig. A metal tube is tightly placed on it, crimped, and the opposite end is bent in a T-shape to form a hand crank; To make work easier and more accurate, it is better to take a double-band drill.

Through axial holes in long wooden parts are drilled in advance, before bending:

At both ends of the workpiece, blind holes of the required diameter are drilled, with a depth of 30-40 mm, trying to ensure that they go as accurately as possible along the axis of the part;
Drill with the described hand crank alternately from both ends, each time going through no more than 3-4 thicknesses of the part;
Chips from the holes are carefully removed after each pass;
After the connection, the jumpers pass through the hole twice, from one end and the other. This is necessary to remove the step inside, on which the cable could get caught when tightening.

How to bend wood?

It is quite possible to make a lamp from bent wooden parts with your own hands: seasoned fine-grained wood softens under heat without delaminating, and when it cools, it retains its given shape. The easiest to bend are bamboo, walnut and soft wood, eg. Linden. More difficult is wood of medium hardness: maple, ash, hornbeam. For bending oak, beech, rowan, etc. hard rocks It’s better for a novice cabinetmaker not to try it. MDF also bends well.

They bend wood either steamed in boiling water or heated dry to more than 150 degrees. The first method is simpler, but is suitable, except for bamboo, for few species. The second is more difficult, but more accurate, because The wood does not swell and, accordingly, does not shrink when cooling.

To bend wood you need a piece steel pipe: with a welded end for steaming or with both open for dry bending. The steaming pipe is installed obliquely, the workpiece is placed in it, filled with water and boiled. The boiling water should be vigorous so that the workpiece is bathed in bubbles of steam. The process is continued for 10-120 minutes, depending on the thickness, species and condition of the tree. You can remove the workpiece for a few seconds to check its readiness, but you only need to add boiling water to replace the boiled water. Dry bending, blowing the workpiece in the pipe with a construction hairdryer. First, you need to check on a sample of wood what temperature it can withstand without charring or cracking.

How to tighten cables?

The cables are tightened into the tubular parts of the lamps using a guide rod - a “fishing rod” - made of copper wire with a diameter of 0.5-0.7 mm. The “fishing rod” must be completely level; Even a smoothly curved wire wound from a reel can become crumpled in a narrow channel. The wire of the “fishing rod” is straightened by pulling it through a rag held tightly in the fist. The best guides are made from enameled winding wire, which is smooth and slippery.

The “fishing rod” is inserted from the far end. Before doing this, its tip is bent tightly, see figure, so that it is rounded. The rod is pushed into the curved channels by slightly pushing and turning. When moving from channel to channel (see below), the running end is guided with thin long tweezers or a screwdriver.

When the end of the rod appears on the opposite side, it is cleaned to 20-30 mm and tinned. The cable wires are stripped and tinned for the same amount, up to 3 per 1 “rod”. Then everything is rolled together and soldered. The twist is bent in the opposite direction to the tightening direction so that it does not snag. Tighten by alternately feeding the cable and tightening the guide. When tightening, the cable in the channel should not be tensioned all the time! If it gets caught, pull it back a little, turn it a little and pull again.

Note: into a straight metal tube with an internal diameter of 12 mm, you can tighten up to 4 2-wire cables in double insulation with a copper cross-section of up to 0.5 square meters. mm. In a channel of the same diameter in a tree there is only 1 cable of the same type.

Starting from the ceiling

Hanging a lamp from a ceiling or wall is the most critical and vulnerable part. Hanging lamps at the 1st point is only allowed if the base is a viscous, durable material, for example. oak beams, pos. a) in Fig. In other cases, you must either use at least 2 suspension points, or the anchor of the lamp must press on the material from above, i.e. the ceiling must work in compression, pos. c) – d).

A chandelier weighing up to 5 kg is suspended using a mounting strip, see fig. on right. The distance between the centers of the mounting holes in the plank should be, for a concrete ceiling, at least 9 of their diameters. If the ceiling is plasterboard, or suspended, or suspended, then the suspension is lowered from the main ceiling to the decorative level using wooden or metal profile crosses or plywood slabs at the top there. How to make a suspension in some other cases, we will look further.

The main requirement for hanging is that the lamp should under no circumstances hang on wires. It should be held by either a rigid rod, or a strong cord/rope, or a cradle made of chains or the same cords. Under the top cap of the suspension, the power cable should lie in a loose loop and should not be pulled, crushed or pinched anywhere.

How to make a lamp?

Now he will try to combine the information received into a solid product, at the sight of which the guests will gasp as soulfully as the master expressed himself while working. We will be guided by the following principles:

We avoid complex and/or technological operations requiring special skills in every possible way.
We use adhesive or soldered joints only as auxiliary ones that hold the joined parts from moving. A product assembled without gluing or soldering should, in the absence of external influences, remain intact in its normal position for an indefinitely long time.
For additional tools, we will try to make do with a hand-held electric drill and a small removable bench vise with a screw clamp for fastening to the table.

Let's start with a chandelier, as the most complex type of household lamp.

Chandelier

On a cord

The simplest suspension of a chandelier weighing up to 5 kg is on a cord, pos. 1 in Fig. In this case, you will have to additionally drill 4 holes in the lampshade mounting ring (see article on lampshades); marked in green at pos. 1a. Cord knots must be knitted so that they do not slip or unravel, for example. any fishing hooks. Cord – any rot-resistant cross lay (for example, linen) with an untensioned diameter of 8 mm or more. Spiral cords and ropes are not designed for long-term tensile loads!

The most important part is the suspension hook (red gearbox). It must be bent from steel wire with a diameter of 4 mm; a hook made of 6 mm wire rod will support a weight of up to 35 kg. Of course, if you buy a ready-made hook for a chandelier, it won’t be any worse.

Suspension rods with the same weight are made of 4 mm wire; with a weight of up to 5 kg you can get by with a 1.5 mm one, and with a weight up to 12 kg - 2.5-3 mm. The ring is made of galvanized sheets 0.4 and 0.8 mm, respectively, or, for weights up to 35 kg, 1.4 mm.

Note: the technology for soldering steel at home is described in.

In this case, it is better to secure the upper cup from sliding with a rubber ring, because the spring washer can crush the cable running underneath it. Good pallet obtained from a computer disk. Depending on whether the lamp is in the lampshade or in the shade, it is turned downwards, respectively, with the painted or mirrored side. Radial cuts are made in the tray for the lampshade extensions.

The upper cup and cap are made of plastic dishes, see above. The cap lies freely on the pallet. Glue – any assembly glue.

Note: The lower nut securing the cartridge should fit into the hole in the pan, and not press it. Otherwise, there may be difficulties when repairing or cleaning the chandelier.

On the phone

In a chandelier suspended on a rigid tubular rod (item 2), firstly, it is not necessary to bend the suspension rods so that it is convenient to tie a knot at their crosshairs. Secondly, the number of pulls can be anything from 3. Accordingly, the ring can be made without an additional row of holes, such as is described in the article on lampshades.

It is preferable to fix the cap in such a chandelier with a shaped (decorative) spring washer. It can be obtained from a thick plastic button by drilling a hole in the center 0.5-0.7 mm narrower than the outer diameter of the tube and making an oblique cut on the side at 45 degrees to the axis of the washer, a round link in a plastic chain with the same cut, etc. P.

The eyelet for the hook in the suspension rod is obtained by flattening the tube and drilling a hole in the resulting lamella (petal). After this (and not before), a hole is drilled for laying the cable, otherwise dangerous mechanical stresses may remain in the material. A rod for a lamp weight of up to 15 kg can be made from the following types of pipes:

Solid drawn steel – internal diameter from 6 mm, wall thickness from 0.5 mm. Finishing – painting or covering with heat-shrinkable tube (HERE) in the desired color.
Steel with seam – internal. diameter from 8 mm, wall thickness from 0.7 mm. The finishing is the same.
Copper gas in a plastic shell - internal. diameter from 8 mm, wall from 1 mm. No finishing is needed, and it will shine like copper for years. You can't solder under adhesive connection you need to remove the plastic covering in that place.
For air conditioning systems made of oxygen-free copper – internal. diameter from 10 mm, wall from 1 mm. Very easy to solder and glue. To preserve the copper shine, you need to coat the finished rod twice with transparent acrylic varnish water-based, diluted twice with distilled water.
Simple red copper – internal. diameter from 12 mm, wall from 1.5 mm. It is soldered after stripping, you need to use flux paste with borax. It darkens over time and under the coating, so it is better to make retro-style lamps from such tubes.
Plumbing propylene ones are very durable, but do not glue and, of course, cannot be soldered with solder. There is no point in finishing it, the design turns out horrifying in any case.

Many-horned

From the tubes you can make chandeliers with brackets-horns for individual illuminators. The device for connecting the horns with the rod is shown in pos. 5. The horns, if their number is even, are connected in pairs with through threaded rods M2.5-M4 with nuts and spring washers. Pairs of holes for the studs are located at different levels; this must be taken into account when calculating the height of the straight part of the horn and making markings on their blanks. You can have horns, incl. if their number is odd, fasten them with pairs of small metal screws, but then you need to tighten the cables very carefully so as not to tear the insulation on the sharp ends of the hardware protruding inward.

Note: Complex/extended bends of tubes are formed in sections, gradually moving a manual pipe bender along the length of the future bend.

If the free ends of the horns are without squiggles (sorry - volute), etc. curls, then it is better to cover their connection with the bar with a cap lying on the lower cup (shown by the dotted line in position 5). In addition, then the laying of cables will be much simpler: a terminal block will be placed under the hood, in which the cables from the horns will converge, and only one 2-wire will go up in the rod.

Multi-arm chandeliers are most often made with switchable light. The diagram for connecting lamps to a 2-section switch is shown in pos. 6. Don’t forget - SB switches (switches) must be connected to the phase wire! And also, it is extremely important: if the house is equipped with protective grounding, Never use a grounding wire as a neutral (zero, N) regardless of the power supply circuit (solidly grounded or isolated neutral)! The ground electrode is always in yellow insulation with a longitudinal stripe, and the neutral insulation in properly arranged wiring is black. But anyway, before we start electrical installation work you need to find zero and phase with a phase indicator!

About phases, zero and ground

Safety regulations (STB), electrical installation devices (EPI) and Codes of Rules (SP) for electrical installation work for related industries (for example, construction) clearly regulate the color of insulation of only grounding wires - yellow with a green stripe; The colors indicating phase wires A, B, C and neutral are only recommended. The reason is that in countries where the only acceptable power supply system is a power supply system with an insulated neutral (Germany, Japan, etc.), it is customary to designate phase A in white or light gray. Therefore, select suitable cables from the commercially available ones to make apartment wiring “without a knot, without a hitch" is not always possible.

The chandelier is heavy...

For ceiling lamps weighing more than 15 kg, fastening to the first rod or cord is no longer considered reliable enough. These need to be hung on a chain or rope cradle of 3-4 branches. 1 branch should support the full weight of the lamp with a 3-fold margin.

The cradle is attached to the ceiling using a triangular or square load-bearing steel plate with a thickness of 5 mm or more, pos. 7 in Fig. The number of attachment points is 4 or 5, respectively. An attachment point in the center is required: without it, if one of the corner fasteners becomes too loose, the mechanical load will “slam” onto the next weakest one, the pendant will break out like a domino and the chandelier will “all of a sudden” collapse.

The corner attachment points must be located on a conventional circle (red dotted line) with a diameter in centimeters of at least 0.85 of the chandelier’s weight in kilograms. In any case, the smallest distance between the centers of holes in concrete ceiling should be from 9 of their diameters, as with a 2-point suspension on a bar, see above. Eyelets or hooks under the cradle branches are welded to the supporting plate. Homemade lugs can be made from 6mm wire rod.

... and ultra-light

Hobbyists make a lot of lamps from disposable plastic tableware, PET bottles and paper. Their weight is negligible, therefore, firstly, it is permissible to mount the socket in the lampshade/shade using the same kebab sticks, see fig. In this case, take the cartridge E17 or E10 with lugs, see fig. left. Using a sewing needle, the “ears” of the cartridge are simply tied to the crosshairs of the sticks with thin thread copper wire or fishing line.

Secondly, the suspension of a super-light lamp can also be made into a cradle, but from fishing line. Its branches are inserted into the ceiling cap along with the cable, as for a chandelier on a cord. Such a suspension is almost invisible. If the cable (remember, it should not be stretched, pinched or crushed anywhere) is twisted or twisted in a spiral, then an ignorant guest may at first be dumbfounded: levitation? telekinesis? superconductor and magnets?

Floor lamp

A floor lamp based on the same design and technological principles is basically an inverted chandelier on a rigid rod with some differences, pos. 3 in Fig. above with lamp designs. First: the rod (which is already a stand) is made of a steel pipe with an internal diameter of 10 mm and a wall thickness of 1.5 mm. Ring – galvanized from 0.7 mm. Second: all joints of steel parts are soldered.

Further, the lower support of the floor lamp must provide a sufficiently heavy and extensive structure for attaching the bottom of the stand. A crosspiece of approximately 450x450 mm made of oak timber 100x100 mm will fit under a standard type floor lamp. A blind hole with a depth of 75-80 mm is drilled in the center along the outer diameter of the rack, and it is glued into the socket assembly adhesive. They also glue the stand into the shelf of the floor lamp. It will be useful, both in terms of design and strength, to apply a polished washer with a diameter of 60 mm and a thickness of 2 mm (steel) or 4 mm (aluminum) onto the glue. The described design allows an amateur to do without custom-turned parts when making a floor lamp.

Desk lamp

A working table lamp based on our construction principles is even simpler than a floor lamp, pos. 4: a fairly massive and durable base (wood, plastic) with a stepped through hole along the axis. The lampshade ring is placed on the step and secured with self-tapping screws. Then it will at the same time press the tendrils of the lampshade and it will not dangle.

Note: for the base table lamp From a ceramic or glass dish you need to make a top-knob with a stepped hole that fits onto its neck. The most suitable material for this is plastic.

For outdoor lighting

External 220 V lamps will be left purchased: It is impossible to make a “forever” sealed cable gland for mains voltage and also a sealed housing with glass at home. We will work with voltages up to 12 V, then the cable entry will be quite simple, see fig. And if the light source is powered from a current stabilizer, then no short circuit will be scary.

However, it may not come down to electricity: for temporary lighting in the garden or at a picnic, even in the 21st century, an ordinary candle is often more convenient and cheaper, and it is also more romantic. You can make a candle lantern with your own hands from coffee can literally in a few minutes, see video:

Video: DIY candle lantern from a coffee can

This lamp is also suitable for a light bulb; then there is no need for ventilation holes and the carrying handle can be attached to the lid, which is more reliable.

A permanent outdoor lamp must already be electric. The main problem in this case is reliable sealing. Here again, glassware with a screw-on lid comes to the rescue: a jar makes a good outdoor lighting fixture. In this case, because a more powerful light source is required, it is better to take a container from conservation. The cable entry pipe is made by piercing the cover with a round pointed rod. To ensure a complete seal, aquarium silicone is applied to the inside of the lid rim once and for all before screwing it on.

A “once and for all” lamp involves the use of very reliable and durable light sources. Requirements for its quality and spectrum fade into the background, because non-residential or workroom. Taking these conditions into account, it is better to make an outdoor lamp on the porch or, say, at the entrance to the garage from LED strip: it will provide sufficiently bright lighting with a negligible electricity consumption. For an example of making such a lamp, see:

Video: DIY garden lantern in 15 minutes

In the garden and in general on the site, high brightness of lighting is no longer needed, here, in general, just so as not to leave the path and see the door to the bathhouse, cellar, barn or bathroom. But it is very, very desirable to have a garden lamp that is autonomous: the issue here is not the cost of electricity, but of the cable, and who would like to ruin a well-groomed area with trenches?

Garden lamps powered by solar panels (SB) and a backup battery (Battery) are on sale, but they are either expensive or short-lived. Let’s try to figure out whether it’s possible to do this on our own, especially since it’s quite possible:

4 white LEDs with a current of 20 mA each in a lampshade made of milk glass or a frosted plastic bottle will illuminate a circle with a diameter of 4-5 m more or less acceptable for garden needs. With a current of each 10 mA in the light spot it will still be possible to see where the stone is, and where is the hole? Total average 60 mA.
The battery, taking into account weak recharging in winter and reduced capacity in the cold, should provide maximum current to the lights for at least 30 hours. Pen-type batteries with a capacity of 2500-3500 mAh, frost-resistant down to –20, are available for sale. We take the minimum permissible battery capacity of 2500 mAh.
Voltage drop across the luminous diode is approx. 2 V. In order to stabilize the total current consumption and the battery discharge mode, on which its resource significantly depends, we give twice as much to the quenching resistors, so the total battery voltage is 6 V.
The SB, taking into account the energy efficiency of the Ni-Cd battery at 74%, should produce a current of approx. 75 mA. For winter in mid-latitudes, we take a rated current of 100 mA.
Also, taking into account the energy efficiency of the battery and voltage losses during charging, we take the battery voltage to 9 V.
To ensure that the battery life does not decrease due to overcharging, the recharging current through it should not be more than 5% of the hourly discharge current. With a battery capacity of 2500 mAh and a short-circuit current of 100 mA, this condition is met, and even more so with a battery capacity of 3500 mAh. That is, instead of an expensive and complex charge controller, you can simply install a silicon rectifier diode.

The diagram of an autonomous garden lamp, built taking into account the described conditions, is shown in Fig.:

Despite its simplicity, the battery in it is never brought to the point of degradation of the active medium due to overcharging and only in exceptional cases can it achieve a deep discharge; therefore, its resource remains normal when used in harsh conditions temperature conditions. The “highlight” here is SB. Their internal resistance is large and nonlinear, according to a power law, and increases with increasing load current, as a result of which the short-circuit current of the SB is only slightly greater than the rated one. From this point of view, in this circuit it is more profitable to use less expensive polysilicon SBs.

The control device CU closes the switch S when the SB voltage drops to the “twilight” level. By that time, VD1 will have already closed and the battery will stop charging. The control unit is connected to the battery only for power supply. Switch - diode or transistor optocoupler or electromagnetic relay; in this case, a reed switch is better, because a conventional one with a low-voltage coil will draw more current than all LEDs. In this case, it is impossible to use a thyristor optocoupler as an S: in order for the opened thyristor to close, the current through it must drop to a very small value, almost to zero. Since the current here is constant, the thyristor, once opened, will not “stop” until it completely drains the battery.

About aquarium lighting

To illuminate aquariums, special linear fluorescent lamps are used. Not the same as phytolamps for flower shelves: the range of aquarium lamps is tailored to the optical properties of water and vital needs aquatic plants. Both lamps are unsuitable for general indoor lighting: light that promotes photosynthesis is not always beneficial for human vision.

A chandelier is a rather expensive item, but technologically not so complicated. In any case, production processes that could not be carried out at home are almost not required to make a chandelier, or they can be replaced with similar manual ones that visually and reliably give the same effect.

Hobbyists with their own hands have made and are making many ceiling lamps for general lighting (and these are chandeliers), which have no analogues in the general market and sometimes have a very extravagant appearance, see, for example, Fig. We hope that the reader will not be interested in inventions either. However, unfortunately, in the scattering of images of homemade chandeliers on the Internet, samples that meet the safety and lighting requirements of residential premises are rarely found. More likely, very rarely.

This article discusses, first of all, how to properly make a chandelier yourself technologically and lighting-wise. There's nothing particularly complicated here; this is something like a Molière character who, it turns out, spoke in prose all his life. But it doesn’t hurt to know some basics. Moreover, an original harmonious design (which is by no means abandoned) also requires a reliable foundation, otherwise how can beauty stand?

Note: for example, how you can make a chandelier for your living room with your own hands at home, see the video below. In terms of design, it will fit into any interior style that accepts clear forms, and this is a very wide range, from Chinese Mandarin to fusion.

Video: DIY chandelier from scrap materials

Therefore, the subtleties of design and construction of the main lighting equipment and at the same time decorative elements chandeliers – ; frame/support of lamps, which are also important as parts of the overall design -. It would also be a good idea to learn about the general lighting design of residential premises. And in this article we will deal with what is common to all of them, plus the electrical part:

Lighting technology and design are the very beginning for domestic premises;
Electrical fittings, mainly from a safety point of view;
What to make lighting fixtures from, with an emphasis on the possibilities of manufacturing from scrap materials;
Features of chandeliers for residential premises for various purposes;
Choosing light sources for a particular chandelier.

Note: to those who doubt why there are any depths here, let it be known - homemade lamps are firmly in the top ten for household electrical injuries, fire hazard and as a cause of vision damage, especially in children.

What should you not be afraid of?

Wood and woodwork. Looking at the curly ones wooden parts industrially made chandeliers seem impossible to reproduce at home. Meanwhile, a completely elaborate wooden chandelier frame can be made in a day or two with your own hands in the kitchen or on the balcony.

The fact is that when wood is heated throughout its entire mass to 150-250 degrees, it softens and bends, and when it cools, it retains its given shape. You can heat a piece of wood to this temperature without charring it with a hair dryer. Just remember to pre-drill the axial holes (say, for wiring an electrical cable); this will not be possible in an already curved part.

Note: The wood that bends most easily when heated is light or medium-density, fine-grained - birch, maple, ash, linden. Bamboo and some species tropical tree They are generally bent when heated to 90-100 degrees by steaming in water vapor. Due to the homogeneity of its structure, MDF bends very well and accurately, but requires more heating.

Finally, quite elegant wooden chandelier can be made from non-bent parts: modern light sources make it possible to implement such a solution. Then the ceiling lamp is made in the form of a ceiling chandelier, see below.

What should you pay attention to?

For old Soviet chandeliers and household lamps in general. The USSR, as we know, was a very controversial phenomenon, which was especially clearly expressed in Soviet consumer goods. If you have an old Soviet-made home chandelier lying around in your closet, then its light-diffusing/light-transmitting parts are probably made of high-quality glass, and its porcelain/earthen decorative parts are made of the same high-quality material. Let 1 “horn” out of 4-5 be broken, the remaining ones will be enough for a new homemade chandelier. Is the paint peeling? Now there are any washes on sale and excellent acrylic enamels. Are some of the pendants lost? From the others, you can also build something very beautiful, if only there was some creativity and taste.

Lighting and vision

About 10 years ago, the throughput was quite accurately measured using information from the optic nerve. It turned out to be 5-6 times less than the amount of information in the picture that the optical system of the eye draws on the retina, and scientists finally had to accept it as a fact: There's something like a video processor lurking somewhere in the eye. Suspicions about its presence arose 200 years ago, because certain visual illusions do not depend in any way on the physical and mental state of the subject. I had to assume, and now I am confident, that the picture that enters the brain is not raw, but somehow processed. From the point of view of lighting technology and the influence of the nature of lighting on health and well-being, this fact is also important: a good lamp should produce light that is not only bright enough, but also even, soft, allowing one to clearly distinguish details of different colors and not tire the eye.

Note: Let us remind the reader that the image on the retina is captured by two types of photoreceptors - rods and cones. The first are the most sensitive, but only perceive general brightness, which is why all cats are gray at night. There are 3 types of cones that perceive separately the red (R), green (G) and blue (B) regions of the color spectrum. Let us also recall that the eye is most sensitive to green rays, somewhat less to red and least to blue.

Spectra of light sources

Light with a continuous spectrum is least tiring for the eye, pos. 1 per pic: all visible details of the object are more or less evenly illuminated. If the spectrum is limited, then those that do not fall into it are simply not visible. The eye processor does not need to “finish” anything, and this is what tires vision most of all and spoils it.

The fact is that in order to “complete” the poorly visible optics of the eye, it must refocus all the time and often, and the photodetecting system must change its accommodation, i.e. general level of sensitivity. This procedure is in some way similar to working out details in Photoshop by normalizing levels and “tightening up” thin curves, but those who know how to do this know: an initially very sluggish picture, if you definitely need to “stretch out” the details, it coarsens to “junk.” And if we are talking about own vision, the brain eventually begins to understand “junk” as the norm, and accordingly reconfigures the muscles of the eye and the algorithms of the visual processor, which leads to vision disorders.

Unfortunately, from those suitable according to safety requirements for living conditions Only incandescent, conventional and halogen lamps provide a continuous spectrum of light sources. Firstly, according to modern requirements, they are uneconomical. Secondly, their spectra are thermal and therefore have a strong slope in the blue region. That is, it is impossible to achieve correct color perception in such lighting.

Nevertheless, incandescent lamps in household lamps are quite applicable: over millions of years of evolution, the human eye has become accustomed to correcting for yellowness, and visual disturbances in such lighting are possible only from its insufficient or excessive brightness. As for sodium lamps, shining only in the yellow region, then their light is also harmless for vision, but there is no need to talk about any adequate color perception here.

Almost ideal color rendition can be achieved with the minimum possible visual fatigue using a synthetic or additive spectrum, pos. 2. The eye processor does not need to overexert itself: the tops of the R, G and B zones go slightly beyond the optimal illumination level for a given overall brightness, and at their junctions, restoring full detail requires simply adding up partial (private) images in the corresponding colors. As a result, the overall white level is almost linear and details of any color are clearly visible, and gray tones smoothly transition into each other.

And again unfortunately: The additive spectrum is provided only by the screens of good cathode ray tubes (picture tubes). Slowly but surely, fluorescent lamps (housekeepers) with 3-4 layer phosphors, individual samples of LED illuminators and TFT display screens are approaching this, but the problem is still far from being completely solved. Therefore, experienced and caring about their vision (which in this case is also the main working tool) graphic designers, photographers and artists working on a computer stubbornly cling to “tube” displays, buying professional ones at exorbitant prices or looking for used ones from not yet dead tube.

Note: Light from sources with an additive spectrum is usually called extremely soft. In nature, the lighting is extremely soft - in the morning with light clouds, when the disk of the Sun is slightly visible through the clouds.

In everyday life, acceptable softness of light can be achieved by sources with an island spectrum, pos. 3. It looks like 3 solid limited ones, but this is the case when quantity turns into quality: having seen 3 zones of primary colors, the eye will definitely try to see what is between them. In the gaps between the islands, something is still visible, albeit at a level of illumination that is significantly less than optimal for a given accommodation. The peaks of the islands are also quite raised upward, but also within acceptable limits.

The island spectrum is provided by most housekeepers and good LED lamps; how to distinguish them immediately upon purchase from, let’s say, not very good ones, see below, in the section on illuminators. It is not advisable to do work that requires eye strain in this light, but you can read/write for 3-4 hours a day.

The island spectrum has 2 important features for household lighting. The first is that it can be significantly softened with the help of light-forming devices, see below. The second is that the “tails” of red and blue do not go into the IR (infrared) and UV (ultraviolet) regions, but decrease to black towards the boundaries of the visible spectrum. Therefore, if details of a certain color are poorly visible in island lighting, increasing the overall brightness will only harm your eyesight. In this case, it is necessary to use local lighting with incandescent lamps or housekeepers/LED lamps of a different color temperature; their spectrum islands will be located differently.

The most harmful spectrum for vision is the line spectrum, pos. 4. In it, firstly, very narrow zones of primary colors do not overlap. Secondly, to create sufficient overall brightness, you have to “raise” the peaks of the lines, especially blue, above the maximum permissible. The light doesn't seem to be very bright, but it hurts the eyes. Everything in general seems to be visible well, but the details are lost somewhere and you can’t see it even if your eyes burst.

This kind of light is called extremely hard. It is provided by cheap LED lamps and certain models of housekeepers with a 1-layer phosphor. There is no way to soften it with light shapers, because... in the gaps between the lines nothing is illuminated at all. With prolonged use of such light, it is possible to develop not only myopia/farsightedness, but also various color vision disorders (the eye processor overexerts itself to no avail, trying to see the invisible), and even retinal detachment.

Electrical fittings

A gross violation of safety regulations during the independent manufacture of chandeliers, which most often entails undesirable consequences, is hanging them by an electrical cable: its end is passed into the light bulb socket, tied with a knot, and so everything hangs on weight. A chandelier, even the lightest one, must be suspended on a separate rod, rigid or flexible.

Everyone knows the rigid suspension of a chandelier: it is a tube into which the cable is pulled. Traditional flexible suspension - chain; The cable in this case passes through the links. Nowadays there are also special cables for chandeliers on sale; in addition to 3 wires under a common sheath, they also have a durable rope for suspension. It needs to be taken out and attached in 2 places: at the top to the hook and at the bottom to the frame of the chandelier, otherwise the rope may crawl out over time and the chandelier will hang on the wires. When hanging on a separate cord, the cable must be wrapped around it with several turns (and not vice versa!) and the ends of the “snake” secured with tape or, loosely, with soft thread.

Emergency situations with chandeliers most often occur at the point where the wires enter the light bulb socket, so the cartridges also need to be secured to the frame separately. The most convenient for this purpose is the E17 socket for a minion lamp (candle lamp) with a screw clamp for the fastening lamella (shown by the arrow in item 1 of the figure). If the frame is made of tubes, the lamellas are obtained by flattening their ends. Slats made of steel strips 1-1.5 mm thick and 10 mm wide can be attached to a wooden frame with small self-tapping screws.

Cartridges E17 with end clamp (shank), pos. 2, for home handyman less convenient, because The clamp is secured with a pair of nuts, for which you need to cut a thread on the tube. If there is enough space in the chandelier, in this case it is better to use the E27 socket (regular, “plump”) with a side clamp, pos. 4. The clamps can be carefully bent to obtain the desired orientation of the lamps. And finally, in chandeliers with a single bulb, it may be more convenient to use an E17 or E10 (super minion) socket with mounting eyes, pos. 5, but the places where the wires are connected to this should be carefully insulated.

Note: Conventional bakelite cartridges E27 can also be fixed rigidly; for this purpose, there is a special thread in the inlet fittings of their covers. But the same thread must be on the tube to which the cartridge is attached, and there are no hand taps for it on sale.

About installation and connection

A chandelier with a total power of up to 60 W can be powered from the network using a cable with a conductor cross-section of 0.35 square meters. mm; up to 120 W – 0.5 sq. mm; up to 300 W – 0.75 sq. mm. Use a 3-core, double insulated cable. The “ground” wire (yellow with a longitudinal green stripe) is connected to the neutral wire of the network, and the remaining 2 are connected to the phase wires coming from the switches of the chandelier sections.

Note: It is unacceptable to look for a phase using a control light and flicking switches! You need to use a phase indicator!

Connecting the wires to the terminal blocks of the lamp sockets and generally wiring the chandelier is done below step by step in the following order:

Using a phase indicator, they make sure that there is no voltage on the wires and no one can accidentally flip the switch. To do this, their levers can be temporarily sealed with tape.
From the ceiling ends of the cable, a makeshift cable with conductors of a cross-section no smaller than the standard one is laid to the floor.
They strip the ends of the standard wires of the chandelier and connect its common input to the temporary structure. Don't forget to insulate the connections!
Disassemble the cartridge.
Insert the end of the cable into the cartridge cover through the standard hole.
Place a lock washer on it to prevent accidental removal from the cartridge. IN as a last resort– tie the cable into a knot.
Seal the bare ends of the wires into the terminals. Before termination, stranded wires are twisted and, preferably, tinned so that the strands that come out do not cause a short circuit (short circuit),
Insert the terminal block into the cover, placing it with the recesses on the corresponding protrusions in it.
Check if there is a small loop of cable under the cover and if it is pulled out.
Holding the terminal block so that it does not come off, screw the cartridge body onto the cover.
Upon completion of installation of the sections, screw in the lamps and check by turning on the corresponding lamps. switch, whether they burn smoothly.
The switches are again blocked from accidental activation and the temporary shed is removed.
, connect its input to the ceiling ends.
Check: it lights up evenly, does not blink - installation is complete, you can use it.

Lighting fixtures

The light fittings of a chandelier (light-shaping system), firstly, direct the light in the appropriate manner for a given type of room. Secondly, it softens it by reducing the surface brightness of the illuminator. And for light sources with an island spectrum, another favorable circumstance appears.

In school and even general university courses in optics, in order not to confuse students too much, it is believed that when light is scattered, reflected and refracted, its frequency remains unchanged; this makes it possible to clearly deduce their basic laws. In fact, there are no absolutely linear media, and a certain fraction of light quanta in these processes is re-emitted, due to which it changes its frequency and, consequently, color. That is, the “tails” of the spectral islands receive a small brightness “feed”, which facilitates the work of the eye processor; this amounts to additional softening of the light.

Workflows

The lighting fixtures of household lamps mainly use diffuse reflection and scattering of light. Mirror reflection is of little use, because does not itself reduce surface brightness or soften light. Refraction in transparent media is widely used: crystal pendants not only provide a pleasant play of light, but also significantly soften it without significant loss of luminous flux. And finally, in some cases, for example. In lampshades made of threads, a noticeable amount of diffraction takes place in the formation of the light flux.

Note: In general, you need to be more careful with diffraction and shadows. The light in the room on the left in the figure can cause nervous breakdown in an adult, and the prickly rays from the lamp on the right there will not benefit vision in any way. Here the circumstance occurs that at the peaks of the diffraction pattern the light intensity can be much higher than on the primary emitting surface.

Forming elements and systems

Softening light and forming its required directional pattern (DP), see below, using refraction in transparent media and/or specular/total internal reflection requires a large number of such optical acts: in each of them, light loss is small, but the degree of light conversion is also small flow, because Transparent media are transparent because their nonlinearity manifests itself to an insignificant degree. Traditionally, this requires many refractive elements with high optical properties; therefore, expensive or available occasionally. Nowadays plastics come to the rescue of amateur craftsmen: an original chandelier based on refraction and reflections can be made entirely from waste material, see below. The appearance of such chandeliers is “airy”; service life – 1-3 years.

If you don’t have crystal pendants at your disposal, you will have to use scattering and diffuse reflection. Light loss will be greater, but in this case it is possible to make do with available materials: it is enough to obtain only 1-3% of nonlinear optical acts in the entire lighting system. An ordinary lux meter with a set of light filters does not capture such a number of “left” quanta, but it is enough for the illumination of the gaps between the islands of the spectrum to rise above the “bottom” of the accommodation range and for the eye to work without overwork.

Light formers based on diffuse optical processes are based on 3 elements: a lampshade, a lampshade and a diffuse reflector. Lamp, pos. 1 in Fig. – a cap made of frosted glass or a material similar in optical properties. Light can come out of it only after undergoing scattering. For the further formation of the luminous flux, the optical properties of the room have no or very little significance.

Lampshade, pos. 2, part of the primary light is released outside without conversion; not necessarily down. Softening of the primary light spot is achieved by illuminating it with diffused light reflected from the walls and ceiling, therefore the optical properties of the room in this case are significant. They become decisive for the diffuse reflector, pos. 3, however, this lighting system, by changing the degree of transparency of the reflector(s), their size, configuration and location, allows the formation of different patterns.

Chandelier lighting systems are built, as a rule, by combining elementary shapers. For example, at pos. 4 – a well-known chandelier made of stepped concentric lampshades, complemented by a small almost flat shade. At first glance, the light loss in it should be large, but remember: to illuminate a school gym with an area of approx. 400 sq. m and with a ceiling height of under 6 m, there were enough uneconomical incandescent lamps for a total power of 800-1200 W.

Among the new lighting systems, chandeliers-shades stand out, pos. 3. They are named so because they are both lighting and architectural ceiling lamps, see photo. The essence of this type of optics is that in the trap chamber the primary quanta experience multiple reflections and the light comes out greatly softened.

Materials for lighting systems

About purchased chandelier elements made of glass or special plastics, you can note that:

The glass you need to choose is mirrored, colorless or pure white.
For any light sources, except incandescent lamps, it is better to take optical parts that are not frosted from the surface, but in the mass, the so-called. milky, desired degree of transparency.
It is undesirable to use acrylic computer disks in lighting systems: the translucent metal layer in them only uselessly absorbs light, and the almost completely transparent and colorless optical acrylic does not significantly transform the light flux.

Good homemade chandeliers obtained from food PET bottles. The refractive index and transparency of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) are quite high, which makes it possible to achieve significant light softening with little light loss. PET bottles are available in various color shades and are translucent, thanks to which a chandelier can be built on the basis of both refraction and transformation, as well as diffuse processes.

In addition to being cheap and accessible, a significant advantage of PET is the ease of processing at home and, in in capable hands, good decorative qualities. For example, how to make flowers from bottles, see the master class at the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TXXoiTLhVA

Floral decor will not only decorate the chandelier, but also, thanks to an increase in the number of refractive surfaces, will significantly improve its lighting technology. Other options for optically useful and beautiful decor from plastic bottles, but we will leave them for the article about lampshades.

Other plastics for chandeliers with economy lamps are also suitable as reflectors. For them you need to take the material as white as possible and slightly rough or with a satin gloss. Translucent details from household plastics not very good, because... The filler most often used is chalk or talc with coloring additives. The light loss in these will be large, and the softening of the light will only be due to a drop in surface brightness. It is preferable to use propylene, because PVC quickly turns yellow and becomes brittle when exposed to light.

The second one is very good and available material for the optical system of the chandelier - paper. If the lamp is LED, then a chandelier made of paper with it will last for several years: the paper turns yellow and loses light transmission from heat and exposure to UV, which LED lamps provide almost or none at all.

The light transmission of the paper components of the chandelier is selected by choosing a material of appropriate density, from 20 to 220 g/sq. m. The reflective properties of modern writing paper are almost impeccable: they are simply not produced with a whiteness coefficient below 0.8-0.85. By the way, some cunning manufacturers operate with whiteness coefficients of 1.05 and even 1.15. By what measurement technique they arrive at super-unit values of a value that, in principle, cannot be more than 1, who knows. But from the point of view of physics, this is a funny absurdity: I put such a leaf in front of the mirror, between them - solar battery, once you shine a flashlight, here you are perpetual motion machine II kind. Or a fertile topic of discussion on technomystic forums. What's wrong with that? If KB>1, then the leaf of light and, accordingly, its energy emits more than it receives.

Note: The bulb of a 60 W incandescent lamp can heat up to more than 100 degrees Celsius. Therefore, for chandeliers with shades, lampshades and reflectors made of plastic, fabric, textiles and threads, you need to use incandescent lamps of no more than 40 W, and halogen lamps - up to 15-20 W.

Video: master class on making a chandelier from rope or thread

Chandelier in the room

The main types of DN for lighting domestic premises are shown in Fig. The cardioid is formed by a lampshade; this is light for small bedrooms, children's rooms, and hallways. The gap at the top is formed by the shadow of the base. A children's chandelier should be equipped with a spherical shade that diffuses light strongly, but without excessive light loss. Particularly soft and, highly desirable, shadow-free lighting in the nursery is necessary so as not to harm the not yet strong vision. Therefore, it is best to make the shade of a children's chandelier from paper, and avoid refractive materials for it.

A figure-of-eight pattern is obtained using several diffuse reflectors and a well-whitened ceiling, for example. plasterboard. Such light is necessary in a fairly large living room with free space in the center, an office and other rooms where areas are illuminated by local light sources.

A fan pattern is produced by a simple lampshade, while a petal pattern is the same, directed with the aperture (bell) upward. Petal lamps are typical for sconces, which are not entirely in theme here, but chandeliers with fan lamps are suitable for a small living room with a dining table in the center or for the kitchen. Especially for the latter: light promotes the deposition of vapors of organic substances and their bituminization in the liquid phase, so there is no need to particularly illuminate the ceiling here; it would be better to let the potential soot go into the hood.

Note: the most uniform illumination of the floor area with minimum consumption electricity for lighting is provided by the so-called. cosecant-square DN. However, it is achieved with the help of very complex lighting devices; the walls and ceiling need to be illuminated separately. It is mainly used for lighting large industrial premises, open areas, sports facilities, etc.

Chandelier lamps

Not all manufacturers of household lighting lamps provide their spectral characteristics on their websites and in specifications, so sellers most often do not know them. As for economy lamps, it’s easier for an ignorant buyer: the spectrum is unknown - We take the color temperature to 4300 K. In the worst case, we get a continuous limited spectrum. It won’t let you see a color postcard or an illustration in a book in all its glory, but it won’t harm your eyesight. Visually, this light is almost white with a slight yellowish tint. The standard electrical power of such lamps is 1.8-3.4 W per 1 sq. m illuminated area depending on the configuration and overall tone of the room design.

Note: phytolamps for shelves with flowers, greenhouses/greenhouses and aquariums cannot be used for general lighting. Their spectrum is sharply linear; it is useful for plants for photosynthesis, but not for human vision.

LED lamps are selected, firstly, for a color temperature of 2800-3300 K, yellowish. Whites, as a rule, have a linear spectrum, which is immediately noticeable: their light hurts the eyes even in a well-lit, naturally-lit trading floor. Based on visible design features, you should choose globe lamps with a matte bulb and a deep shank, pos. 1 in Fig. If you like the “corn” lamp, then you need to be guided by the following signs of poses. 2:

The LED assembly must be covered with a translucent bulb; this first of all guarantees the durability of the lamp. "Naked corn", with luminous structures underneath protective film, sensitive to pollution and external influences in general.
The number of individual emitting structures should be at least 15-20.
"Head of cabbage", i.e. the shell-holder of the radiating structures must be transparent. In combination with prev. conditionally, this will give a greater number of reflections inside the bulb, greater uniformity of the primary light and better possibilities for forming a luminous flux.

In order not to “fall” into the line spectrum, you should also avoid imitations of globes and “corn” in the form of light bulbs with a transparent bulb sitting directly on the base and a small number of emitting structures, pos. 3. The illumination from them in a small room will be visually uneven, and the spectrum is most often lined. Also, LED directional lamps, pos. 4. They are intended for auxiliary/service lighting and are harmful to the eyes if used for a long time.

A chandelier in a room is not only lighting device. Without exaggeration, we can say that it is the main decoration of the room. Handmade items are considered especially valuable. This allows us to highlight the special taste of the owners of the home, as well as their extraordinary and creative mind. Of course, this type of work is quite complex and requires increased concentration. But at the same time, when creating decorations for your home, you can find many interesting and extraordinary solutions in it!

This article presents some ideas for decorating a chandelier with your own hands, as well as instructions for them. Everything is written so simply and clearly that anyone can do it at home.

In order to make a chandelier, sometimes they use the most unusual materials. For example, everyone is already familiar with glass or wood, plastic, and so on. But sometimes, when you want something completely “unusual,” wooden skewers and glass bottles wine bottles, and cans, and all kinds of tree branches, and cardboard, and even straw. You need to choose depending on the idea of the creator and the wishes of the apartment owners. You also need to take into account the general interior of the room where the finished product is supposed to be placed.

Interesting idea for a chandelier made from plastic spoons

Plastic spoons for disposable meals are one of the simplest and most easily available materials for creating a chandelier for a room. Their advantages are low price, a variety of colors, and such material will last for quite a long time. To create such an extraordinary chandelier, you will need a minimum of investments, both physical and material.

Materials:

empty drinking water bottle, 5 liters;
plastic spoons (their number depends on the size of the bottle);
glue for plastic;
an old chandelier (or rather, a socket from it);
sharpened knife.

Process of creation:

First you need to prepare a plastic bottle for subsequent steps. Remove the label in advance, cut off the bottom, dry well.
Then you need to remove the plastic spoons from the packaging and carefully cut off the unnecessary handles with a knife, leaving about 2-3 centimeters above the level of the “scoop”.
You need to glue the scoop blanks to the base of the bottle. Apply a large amount of glue to the remaining “tail” and press it to the surface (with the convex side of the spoon facing out). It is necessary to cover the entire bottle in a circle until the entire perimeter is occupied by plastic “spoons”. It is advisable to arrange them in a checkerboard pattern and slightly move them together. This will leave fewer “free spots”.
With the old one unnecessary chandelier you need to remove the cartridge, and then place it in an already glued and dried bottle and fix it to the frame.
A decorative bowl can also be made from plastic spoons: “scoops” are glued around the neck of the eggplant.
Install and connect the chandelier, check its operation.

Note! The option of decorative painting or painting of spoons in absolutely any color is possible. Thus, your product will look even more beautiful and more original!

Chandelier made of plastic bottles in the shape of leaves

One more an unusual option The interior will feature a chandelier in the shape of leaves. It is created from simple plastic bottles, the variety of colors of which allows you to work in the most unusual colors and embody the most daring ideas.

Process of creation:

Cut plastic bottles into blanks shaped like future leaves.
For each workpiece, the sheet shape is finally fixed.
Using a soldering iron with a thick tip and a one-sided bevel, you need to slightly fuse the sections of each leaf in order to give the future product the greatest effect.
In the same way, using a soldering iron, you need to give the workpieces a sheet structure. You need to act extremely carefully and accurately, because you can easily make a hole in the plastic. Such a leaf with outlined veins and slightly fused edges will look complete.
Using a hot needle, you need to melt several holes at the “leg” of each leaf in order to attach them.
Using thin wire, form branches and screw them to a steel wire frame.

Also great idea there will be production new chandelier in the form of a lampshade for a floor lamp or a lamp for a table. Thus, it will be a great addition to the previous product!

Chandelier with paper butterflies

The most common product option is a chandelier with butterflies. And this is not without reason. Let's start with the fact that this option looks luxurious and expensive, and secondly, its production does not require any special physical costs. Thus, even a child can participate in creating a chandelier.

Process of creation:

It is based on either an old chandelier or a similar frame. If you don’t have one, then you can take the simplest wooden or metal rim. If such material is not available, then, as an option, you can take thick wire and make about 2-3 skeins, so that a circle is formed.
Cut out butterflies from paper according to the template. You need to take the butterfly template and adjust it to the desired size. The option also looks very unusual when butterflies of several sizes are located on the chandelier (again, depending on desire). Transfer the outlines onto paper and carefully cut out, preferably with a sharpened stationery knife, or small, non-rounded scissors. For the templates themselves, it is better to use a material that is dense, does not become very dirty and does not attract dust. For example, velvet paper is very poorly suited for the product, because in the future you will need to vacuum the chandelier quite often.
Take a nylon thread or transparent fishing line and attach the butterflies to it. There are two types of fastening: either piercing the bodies of the butterflies, or gluing them with silicone glue.
Next, we attach the threads with butterflies to the base of the frame and decorate it.
You can also try interesting option, if you make a wire ball! It should be based on a pendant from a chandelier and placed on it using glue gun several butterfly patterns.

Fabric chandelier

This chandelier is also based on a frame. As in the previous version, either old metal frames or thick wire are suitable for its manufacture.

After you have pre-prepared the base, start cutting out the fabric from which the lampshade will be made in the future. How long will it be ready product, depends on your desire, but it is worth considering that the width of the fabric must be the same as the diameter of the frame! Once you finish the pattern, you need to do a fitting.

Another nuance is that the top of the fabric will need to be sewn directly on the frame, which means that it (the frame) must be solid. Otherwise, if it is possible to thread it directly into the fabric, then you should first fold the top edge of the pattern and stitch it, and then iron it. Then we sew a seam on the side of the product.

To prevent the lampshade from losing its shape, you should pay due attention to the material. If the fabric is too light, “airy,” then the bottom of the product should be weighted. You can use cardboard or fishing line for this.

Carefully sewn fringe, lace or braid will look just as beautiful. But do not “overload” the product! The process of creating a fabric chandelier is similar to making a lace chandelier. So you can safely experiment with the materials that are placed on the frame.

Lamp made of threads and a balloon

Materials:

dense threads, such as wool, cotton, or jute rope - at least 1 meter;
cartridge;
petrolatum;
PVA glue;
a brush for applying glue and Vaseline (it is advisable that the brush does not fade);
1 or 2 pieces of balloons (the first for working with it, and the second for checking the finished product, if desired);

Process of creation:

Inflate the balloon to a certain size and secure it. Remember that the finished work will exactly follow the outline of the ball! Using a marker, draw a couple of circles at the top and bottom in order to determine the boundaries of thread winding.
Using a brush, coat the entire perimeter of the ball with Vaseline.
Pour PVA into a plastic container and thoroughly process the threads with it (It is not advisable to apply glue to the entire length of the threads at once! Process them as you wind them around the ball!).
Taking into account the boundaries that you drew with a marker, wind the threads around the ball. Do not forget that the future depends on the density with which you wind appearance products.
After wrapping, you need to leave the product for a day until it is completely dry; After complete drying, you need to burst the ball and remove it through the holes.
Cut a spot in the top and insert the cartridge.
To be completely sure that the product is strong, you can insert a balloon into it and inflate it. In a similar way, you can check the flexibility and reliability of the lampshade.

Alternatively, you can paint the structure with a spray can or acrylic paint, attach all kinds of decorative decorations to it, such as butterflies, artificial flowers or beads. Also, a great idea would be to arrange several balls in the form of a bunch of grapes and fasten them together.

Wine bottle chandelier

This version of the chandelier is a little more complex than the previous ones. Making a chandelier this way is quite difficult; the manufacturing process will require care and attention. However, you will like the result!

Materials:

wine bottle;
glass cutter;
sandpaper for sanding edges;
cartridge;
electrical wire;
metal or wooden frame, rim.

Process of creation:

First you need to prepare the bottle itself for further manipulations with it. The first step is to draw a straight line around the perimeter at the level you need. This is required in order to cut off the bottom of the bottle using a glass cutter;
To avoid cutting yourself on the glass, you need to sand the sharp edges sandpaper;
Pull the wire through the neck of the bottle and then connect the socket;
Attach the bottle to the frame.

You can also decorate the bottle with all sorts of decorative items, or leave it in its original form. In any case, it will look original and impressive.

The number of products on the frame depends on your desire. You can either leave one bottle or secure four or more bottles at once.

Laserdisc chandelier idea

This idea is great for those who have a large number of laser discs left in the house, but don’t dare throw them away. It’s worth noting right away that manufacturing options and the result can be very different. It all depends on your imagination and creativity!

Materials:

two round wooden planks of different thicknesses, and which are slightly larger in diameter than the disks;
racks made of metal or wood;
Fluorescent Lamp;
magnetic switch;
disks.

Process of creation:

Make a hole in a thicker board and install a starter with a switch in it.
Then connect it all to the lamp.
String disks onto the lamp.
Place the stands around the discs and secure the top.

The finished product will delight its owners for a long time, and it does not require special care. It is not advisable to place this type of chandelier in a child’s room so that the child cannot harm himself (only if the chandelier hangs out of reach).

Shabby chic chandelier

To create spectacular lighting in a room, you can also make a chandelier from fabric or beads. The result will be a kind of candelabra or lampshade in the “shabby chic” style.

Materials:

a ready-made metal or wooden frame (or it can be made from an old hoop, garden basket, thick wire);
socket and lamp;
chains and threads for decoration;
all kinds of beads and seed beads.

Working on such a lampshade is not difficult, but it is a very painstaking task. Such chandeliers usually consist of two or three levels of rings, which are located on top of each other. It all depends on the size of the chosen bases. If you take rings of the same diameter, the finished product will be made in the “modern” style.

One of important points is that before you start decorating the chandelier you need to paint and wrap the frames with decorative materials!

The approximate consumption of beads is:

For the lower part of the lampshade - 16 mm beads, about 15-17 pieces per thread;
For the upper part of the lampshade - 12 mm beads, about 35 pieces per thread.

Naturally, when stringing beads on a thread, you can increase or decrease their number or the degree of thread tension. But it is still advisable to stock up on materials in excess of the norm.

The essence of the work is to hang threads with beads in a “waterfall” or “cascade” so that they flow downward along the structure.

In order to create the effect of “muting” the light, you can sheathe the frame with thick fabric.

A DIY chandelier will definitely add a fresh touch, originality and beauty to your interior. You will immediately notice how the room will sparkle with new colors, and your guests will sincerely admire your creativity, hard work and original taste!

90 photos of DIY chandelier ideas

There is no doubt that properly executed kitchen lighting sets the tone for the entire interior. A chandelier can become the central element in this cozy and warm room.

Using scrap materials - or even waste - you can make a lampshade from threads, an eco-style lamp from jute twine or plastic bottles, or you can make a real masterpiece – beautiful chandelier from wooden or glass beads.

You can also not only hang a lamp made by yourself in the kitchen or dining area, but also give it to your loved ones as a gift.

Method 1. From scrap materials - anyone can do it!

The simplest DIY lamp is made from threads. Indeed, even a child can handle such a design. So, to make a chandelier from threads, we will need:

Threads - you can take regular jute twine or thick cotton threads with a total length of at least 100 meters, the color is chosen based on your imagination and the existing interior;
PVA glue and brush for applying it;
Petrolatum;
2 balloons - one for work, the second for testing; It is better to take a round ball, not an ordinary one, then the shape of the lamp will be the correct shape.

Advice! Also suitable for children or a rubber beach ball. For very large lamps, a fitball, for example, is suitable.

Work on creating a ball of thread is carried out in the following sequence:

Inflating the balloon required sizes. Do not forget that the resulting lampshade made of threads will repeat the shape of the ball. Using a marker, draw one or two circles at the top and bottom (more at the bottom).
Pour glue into a container and carefully process the threads. And the ball itself can be coated with Vaseline with a brush.

Advice! You shouldn’t apply glue to all the threads at once - it’s better to move along the winding area.

Next comes winding the threads around the ball, taking into account the drawn holes - the density of the winding determines how your lampshade will turn out in the end.

After the ball is wrapped, you need to leave the future chandelier to dry for at least 24 hours.
The ball bursts and its remains are easily removed from the robust construction. The result was a lampshade made of solid threads.
A hole is cut at the top to accommodate the cartridge.
You need to check the strength - another balloon is inserted into the lamp and inflated. This will demonstrate the flexibility of the design.

In this way, you can also create local lighting in the kitchen by creating several lamps from threads with your own hands. Or you can hang it in the dining area, as shown in the photo.

Do not forget that for a ball of thread you can make additional decor in the form of interesting coloring, beads, butterflies or artificial flowers, or you can make a whole bunch of balls of different sizes.

Using the same principle, you can come up with your own unique design lamp For example, made of lace, or a ceiling lamp as in the photo below.

Method 2. Creating a masterpiece - you need to try!

You can get excellent kitchen lighting if you make your own lamp from beads or fabric. You will get a lamp in style or a real candelabra chandelier.

For this job you will need:

An old hoop, garden basket, hanging metal planter, or wire to create a frame;
Decorative chains;
Beads, beads, ribbons, strong threads;
Lamp socket.

The lamp will be a two- or three-level structure of rings located one above the other and connected by chains or wire.

Rings can be taken different sizes, creating a lampshade in the spirit of a vintage classic, or the same - this is exactly the kind of lighting that is performed in.

The base of the lamp is certainly painted, wrapped or decorated, after which they begin to string the beads.

The consumption of beads in this project is as follows:

Bottom part: beads with a diameter of 16 mm, 15 pcs. on a thread;

Upper part: beads with a diameter of 12 mm, 31-32 pcs. on the thread.

Here you can vary the degree of tension and the number of threads.

Advice! The work should be carried out by first hanging the chandelier and inserting a socket into it.

By analogy, you can create a chandelier from artificial fruits for the kitchen. And subdued lighting will be achieved if you use fabric to cover the frame. As a rule, such a lampshade is made for country and country styles.

Method 3. Lamps made from waste materials - for a modern kitchen!

The most original lamp can be made from waste materials such as plastic bottles and disposable spoons - it’s beautiful, cheap and environmentally friendly!

We make a lampshade in a minimalist style and - no additional decorations from threads or beads, only matte white or colored plastic. To make such dim kitchen lighting with your own hands, we will need:

Base made from a 5-liter plastic bottle;
Cartridge with wire and lamp;
Glue for high-quality fixation;
Lots of disposable spoons.

To make a chandelier with your own hands, cut out the bottom of the bottle and cut off the handles of the spoons (not completely, so that a small handle remains). Using glue, we fix the cut spoons on the base bottle. They need to be placed evenly, in a row, then the lampshade will look attractive.

Advice! Each next row overlaps, without gaps.

The resulting chandelier will resemble fish scales. However, it should be remembered that this design is quite dense, which means that additional lighting will definitely be needed in the kitchen.

The shape of the lamp can be different, for example, in the shape of a lotus.

You can also make such decorations from disposable spoons.

A lamp made from plastic bottles, or rather from their bottoms, made with your own hands, may seem like lace or consisting of many small flowers.

Advice! Such a lampshade can be made not white, but colored - which means you need to take colored bottles or paint it with paint of the original color: copper, gold, steel, pink, black, etc.

The resulting lampshade can be hung in the kitchen or above the dining table.

Let your kitchen be cozy and bright! We wish you creative success and present some more wonderful ideas for making kitchen lamps with your own hands from improvised materials.

Make a chandelier in the Gzhel style with your own hands. DIY chandelier from scrap materials: detailed master classes

Chandelier made from plastic spoons

What materials will be needed?

The process of creating an original chandelier

Note!

DIY chandelier photo

Note!

About LEDs

Materials, tools, equipment, technologies

Quite simple, but tasteful

Plastics

Ceramics

Electrical fittings

About wooden lamps

Cable channels

How to bend wood?

How to tighten cables?

Starting from the ceiling

How to make a lamp?

Chandelier

On a cord

On the phone

Many-horned

About phases, zero and ground

The chandelier is heavy...

... and ultra-light

Floor lamp

Desk lamp

For outdoor lighting

Video: DIY candle lantern from a coffee can

Video: DIY garden lantern in 15 minutes

About aquarium lighting

Video: DIY chandelier from scrap materials

What should you not be afraid of?

What should you pay attention to?

Lighting and vision

Spectra of light sources

Electrical fittings

About installation and connection

Lighting fixtures

Workflows

Forming elements and systems

Materials for lighting systems

Video: master class on making a chandelier from rope or thread

Chandelier in the room

Chandelier lamps

Interesting idea for a chandelier made from plastic spoons

Chandelier made of plastic bottles in the shape of leaves

Chandelier with paper butterflies

Fabric chandelier

Lamp made of threads and a balloon

Wine bottle chandelier

Laserdisc chandelier idea

Shabby chic chandelier

90 photos of DIY chandelier ideas

Method 1. From scrap materials - anyone can do it!

Method 2. Creating a masterpiece - you need to try!

Method 3. Lamps made from waste materials - for a modern kitchen!

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