My ancient fluorescent magnifying desk lamp emerged from a box and cried out to be used, but the equally ancient 22 W fluorescent ring light was long past its prime and cried out to be replaced with something from the current millennium.
So I removed the fluorescent ballast / choke from the junction box at the lamp base:
![Magnifying Ring Light - ballast removed](https://softsolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/pxl_20240521_214436623-magnifying-ring-light-ballast-removed.jpg?w=900)
That’s a grounded outlet in the cover plate serving as a wire termination block. The red crimp connector joins a white wire that formerly went to the ballast with the black wire going to the lamp head; you’ll note the black wire from the line cord going into the same heatstink tubing at the outlet.
The lamp head had a push-to-start switch, presumably with an internal starting capacitor or some such, but also sporting a pair of terminals behaving like a single-pole push-on / push-off switch. A bit of rewiring, of which there are no pictures, made it work perfectly with the new 13 W LED ring light:
![Magnifying Ring Light - LED ring installed](https://softsolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/pxl_20240522_203659821-magnifying-ring-light-led-ring-installed.jpg?w=900)
It now sits on a bit of laboratory ironmongery weighing about as much as a small child:
![Magnifying Ring Light - on base](https://softsolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/pxl_20240522_203640383-magnifying-ring-light-on-base.jpg?w=900)
Although the base has four feet, it sits perfectly flat on my (admittedly battered) surface plate because all four feet have been ground to make that happen:
![Magnifying Ring Light - foot plan view](https://softsolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/pxl_20240522_172839742-magnifying-ring-light-foot-plan-view.jpg?w=900)
Those feet will be hostile to any table / bench top outside their intended laboratory environment. Fortunately, the geometry is simple enough to build directly in LightBurn and cut from a cork disk with PSA backing suited to become a coaster:
![Magnifying Ring Light - cork foot cutting](https://softsolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/pxl_20240522_180341923-magnifying-ring-light-cork-foot-cutting.jpg?w=900)
Which fit well enough, although all four feet are just slightly different:
![Magnifying Ring Light - cork foot](https://softsolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/pxl_20240522_181212663-magnifying-ring-light-cork-foot.jpg?w=900)
The new Basement Shop™ is coming together and this stuff is getting easier …
The WordPress AI came up with a plausible steampunk build:
![Magnifying Ring Light - WP AI image 1](https://softsolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/magnifying-ring-light-wp-ai-image-1.jpg?w=900)
Love those flowy feet, although the vertical rod in the back seems misplaced.
Adding “one-piece base” to the prompt produces contemporary style:
![Magnifying Ring Light - WP AI image 2](https://softsolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/magnifying-ring-light-wp-ai-image-2.jpg?w=900)
Dunno what the dingus on the lower arm might be (perhaps a spring?), but it’s got the right general idea.
Very nice conversion – have a couple of these lamps – very clean conversion –
The LED ring is much much brighter than the ancient fluorescent tube, although it produces the usual flicker bars in the phone camera. I like LEDs, but I wish the line voltage ones had AC-to-DC converters for true no-flicker response.