I always need an atrocious amount of light for my desk. For a while, that light was provided by a single multi-jointed desk lamp from Ikea which was fine until I started to do a lot more building and found a need for more light. In June of 2021, I bought a second lamp. The issue was that Ikea designed these lamps with tiny bases that provided little support for the high use I was putting them through, causing my lamps to be unstable. Eager to fix the problem, I designed my own base.
Lamp Base
The design above was not my first attempt at a modular lamp base. I went through 3 different designs before I arrived at the final one. Initially, I tried to use a long wooden block for the base with several plastic inserts. The problem with this was that it would be difficult to manufacture these bases without the use of a CNC which would have made the build more complex. In the end, I like how the final design turned out. It’s easier to manufacture, does the same job as the initial designs, and fits well into the aesthetic of my room. I actually loved the design of the final lamp base so much that I used almost the same design to create a coat rack for my room too.
The base I designed utilizes the hardware from the original Ikea lamps but creates a number of spots for a lamp to be placed, allowing the base to facilitate a high level of modularity for custom lighting setups. The design is made of an aluminum rail with several 3D-printed inserts, each capable of holding a lamp. The reason why I used individual parts for each lamp placement location was to make it really easy to replace worn-out components as the lamps grind away at the plastic over time. This way, the design is future-proofed and has been able to hold up for the 2+ years I have been using it.