Cheesy puns aside, I needed to be able to see in my little work area where I plan to play with electronics while I try not to burn myself with my soldering irons. Over the summer I bought a couple of workbench tables at a garage sale. One condition was that I had to take everything on the tables! That included a couple of laser printers, a box with a few keyboards and mice, and various office accessories. One of those accessories was an adjustable lamp.
Great! I’ll just use that adjustable lamp for my work area. Problem: The clamp that holds it to the desk probably broke a long time ago, and is long gone. The solution?
I rummaged around my storage and found a nice heavy base in the shape of a Microwave Oven Transformer that I was going to turn into a welder, and never did. I drilled out one of the mounting holes to make it big enough to fit the only bolt I could find, and I mounted the bolt upside down and set the lamp on top of it. Voila! A desk lamp. To make it look more hacker-turned-mad-scientist-y, I connected some spade connectors to the lamp itself. I give you… the Hacker Lamp!