Last weekend I did a fun project to improve the usability of my desk lamps. In my office I have a desk lamp and another stand up lamp that’s away in another corner of the room. I often like to turn ON both of these lamps but their switches are hard to reach when I’m sitting down at my desk. I once stayed at a hotel where there were small rocker-switches inset into the bedside tables that controlled the bedside lamps. With the switch right next to you it was easy to switch off the light while you were lying down whenever you were ready to go to sleep. Similarly, I wanted to have an easy-to-reach switch on my desk to turn both my lamps ON and OFF at the same time.
What I built was a Desktop Arcade Button ON OFF Switch. Pressing the green button turns ON the lamps, and pressing the red button turns them back OFF again.
Parts
- Remote ON/OFF Switch
- Arcade-style button—red and green
- Cardboard (to house the internal workings)
Steps
- Rewire the Remote ON/OFF switch to the Arcade buttons. Before you would click on the remote of the ON/OFF switch to turn the lamps on and off. Now you’ll push on the arcade buttons.
- Drill 2 holes in your desk so that the arcade buttons can fit through.
- Make a cardboard enclosure to hide the inner workings of the switch.
