Here is a design for an overhead light fixture (see the Creative Commons license notice below).
I’m not really sure I’m going to save any money with this. I’m spending a lot for a very nice lamp, but economically, I’m not sure the energy and light bulb savings will be worth it. But then again, that’s not the only reason to do anything.
This lamp will replace the aging standard fixture in the ceiling of my study in a house built in 1965. This existing fixture is made for two Edison base light bulbs, and switched at the wall near the entry door. Bo-rrring.
The idea is to stop the 120V wiring at the switch. There I’ll put in a small DC power supply and a circuit inside the wall box with a special wall plate for the switches mounted on the PC board. A three wire cable (ground, 24 volts DC, and a 0 – 5 volt square wave) will connect to the overhead fixture. The lamp will be made of 6 pentagonal printed circuit boards connected together on the edges like the lower half of a dodecahedron (12 sided solid). Each board will have 5 Cree XLamp MX-6 high-brightness LEDs, 6500 Kelvin (cool white color), for a total of 30 LEDs.
