Hello UFO! And farewell Historical Artifact.

This winter's light-supplementation upgrade for my work station

Important Historical Artifact. Maybe it belongs in a museum?

Seriously bright light chases the winter blahs away.

“YOU NEED MORE LUX” introduced the concept of light supplementation. That can make you happy and productive in the depth of winter. But, you probably need much more light than you can get from a “light therapy lamp.”

Not many people meet the official criteria for Seasonal Affective Disorder, but many more will enjoy the dark months more with sufficient light supplementation. Since I published the first version of “YOU NEED MORE LUX” in 2015, an enormous number of people have written to me saying “it really works, thank you!!”

What is it like to walk into a room that’s bright as day when it’s fully dark outside at five p.m.? It’s nice. It feels cheerful and uplifting and comforting and energizing—like walking into the sun at the beginning of your vacation.

Every year, I upgrade my home’s light supplementation with new industrial LED technology.

“Seriously bright light vs. winter blahs” explains several different types, with different advantages.

I’ve updated that post often, as newer, better lamps become available, and at lower prices. I’ve done a significant overhaul there now, plus minor revisions in “YOU NEED MORE LUX.”

Starting in the 2023 update, I described “UFO lamps,” which I hadn’t yet tried. I’ve just installed one in my new work station:

The screensaver is my spouse Charlie Awbery with an Egyptian Vulture. You can read about the weird widget on the desk in “My life in keyboards.”

It’s this 400 watt model, which cost $60 when I ordered it a couple weeks ago. It’s mysteriously unavailable at posting time, but there are lots of similar ones available!

400 watts is nice. LEDs are roughly ten times more powerful per watt than incandescent bulbs, so this is like 4000W of those—quite bright! And having installed it, I think a 500W or 600W version would be even better :)

Putting an old friend out to pasture

The header photo in this post shows the first bright LED lamp I built, in 2015. The original version of “Seriously bright light vs. winter blahs” was just about how and why I built that, and the effect it had for me. The most powerful LED “corn bulbs” then were 100 watts, and they cost $120 each. (Now you can get them for $25.) I built the lamp with three sockets and an aluminum reflector behind the 100W bulbs to direct more of the light forward.

Here it is without the monitor:

These Bronze Age bulbs had noisy fans built in. Pretty annoying!

More recent high-powered LED lights don’t need that. This year, I decided it was time to retire the lamp, so I put it out in the garage. It’s kinda junk now, to be honest.

But I don’t feel right about throwing it away. It’s an Important Historical Artifact, which showed the way out of the darkness for thousands of people. It probably belongs in a museum.

Anyway, I’m sentimentally attached to it. It rescued me from the darkness, and it’s a significant piece of my personal history.