One of our members, Jeffrey Crews, has been experimenting with printable ball-joints from Thinigiverse. The most versatile ones he found were StefanHH’s ball and socket chain links. After using them to replace the frustrating wing-nut and rod system on the common Helping Hands device, he built a lamp.

It turns out that the “flange” part needs to be printed at 108% to fit tightly with the others. He mounted it on one of Adafruit’s 4xAA battery holders, which forms a weighted base and also provides a switch. After that he threaded the wires through a hole in the top of the battery case, through the  the central holes of the ball joints, mounted a high-intensity white LED in the tip, and soldered it all together. It provides stable, highly positionable, bright white light for close-up detail work.

The lamp is so useful in the electron microscopy lab where Jeff works that a coworker has stole this particular build and pressed it into service illuminating an ultramicrotome! (A replacement is in the works.)