Continued from Building Light, Ingredients. The first thing I noticed, this thing is going to be quite huge. The frame and stand together stand more than 2 meters high.

Now, how to connect the board to the frame? The frame had two hooks which could be used for hanging up the board, but the board would need some kind of handles which would hang on the hooks. I sketched out another piece for the metalworkers, and Eric had them made.

2 x Metal clips = 250 x 2 = Ksh. 500.

The clips were too rough to use and the bolt holes weren’t straight. Ahem. Back to the drawing board. I then spotted plastic drain plungers at Uchumi. The handles looked just right, and the plungers were cheap.

2 x Plastic Plungers = 70 x 2 = Ksh. 140

I then unscrewed the plunger bit and bolted the handles onto the back of the board – which was easy, they’re plastic and it was easy to dig holes into them.

Perfect. The board help up on the frame (note cool swivel action, below).

The next major task was mounting the bulbs onto the board. The forex material is cool because you can sketch on it with a pencil, so I divided it up and came up with 49 squares that fit on the board with a 10cm margin around them for mounting issues. 49 squares!

Mathematics: This means 49 bulbs and 49 bulb holders.
49 x CFL bulbs = 49 x 460 = Ksh. 22,540. Yowza!
It also means 23 watts x 49 = 1,127 watts.

Kevin assured me that I could plug it into an ordinary household power outlet without blowing something up. I also had 15 CFLs and bulb holders from the previous lights, so I’d only need 34 new sets. Eric and I went off to the shops and depleted the stocks of CFL bulbs at 3 supermarkets (Sorry, that was us). Luckily, we also came across 12 of the same bulbs from Osram – which were 305 Kshs. each, saved us some money. God Bless Osram.

In total:

12 x Osram 23-watt daylight CFLs = 12 x 305 = Ksh. 3,660
22 x Philips 23-watt daylight CFLs = 22 x 460 = Ksh. 10,120
34 x bulb holders = 34 x 70 = Ksh. 2,380

Drilling holes into the forex was also very easy, yet it remained firm. 49 holes through which the wiring would pass. I added a layer of aluminum foil onto the board to help direct more of the light onto the subject.

Enter Kevin the wonder-boy electrician from last time. He wired up all the holders and made an extra-long power cable to power the whole thing, and I then screwed the holders onto the board. They held up, firmly. Good stuff.

Testing time. I mounted the board onto the frame and begun plugging in the bulbs. Oh, wait. The board handles begun sagging – the plastic handles were not firm enough. Back to the drawing board.

After another random stroll at Uchumi, I noticed the broom section. The handles of the brooms were the same diameter as the plunger handles, but much harder – made of metal with a coating of plastic to make it easy to hold. Longer, too – 1.2 meters on average. Perfect, one long metal pole would probably work better.

Broom Handle = Ksh. 320.

The only problem with the metal pole is that I could possibly pass screws through it unless I had a drill (which I don’t have), so I bought some brass hooks from the hardware store:

4 x Brass Hooks = 40 x 4 = Kshs. 160.

I then screwed them onto the board and slid the pole into place. Perfect; the board stayed up, no sagging. So I plugged in the bulbs and SHOW TIME!