Room Lighting

When I’m using my computer in my room at school, I don’t like having the main room light on because it’s a little bright. It’s rather awkward sitting in the dark, so I needed some dimmer lighting. My roommate found a Jimmy John’s sign in a dumpster and he left it in my room while he went abroad. It had a broken pin in the power socket, easily fixed with some pliers (what a waste for Jimmy John’s to throw it out). I tried some 12v wall warts I had, but 2A just isn’t enough to power this thing. I found a ps2 slim power supply works great and gives just the right amount of brightness with its 8.5v at 5.65A, though the supply gets a little warm. I actually need the supply for my ps2, so I looked elsewhere. Computer power supplies work well, supplying 10A+ at 12v, but the sign is a bit bright at 12v, so I scrapped the idea of using that as mood lighting. Then it hit me: a lite brite. A sweet toy I remember playing with when I was little, would provide a little light and could show off a sweet picture. I acquired a lite brite from craigslist and scanned in the plastic piece that holds the pegs. I erased the holes, so I had a rough template that I could layer over a picture in Photoshop to get a guide for making a design. I like the old school Apple logo, so I chose this as my design. It turns out that lite brites don’t come with nearly enough pegs to fill out even half the board, so I’m in the process of getting more pegs.

Here’s a couple pictures of it in its current state:

Update: I got some more pegs (and another lite brite), so I was able to finish it. Some of the pegs are a different style, and I don’t think it looks as good as it can, but I’m not about to spend any more money on this.