Light Bulb Recycle

Project brief

Design a small lamp and use the light bulb as a diffuser.

A broken light bulb doesn’t have to become waste. I had a broken bulb with a plastic diffuser, so I designed a small lamp that repurposes that diffuser as the light cover.

I came up with this design family. Each light uses a 3 V coin cell, an LED filament, and a TTP223 capacitive touch sensor.

My personal favourite is the one on the right. The lamp turns on when you lift it up and set it back down on the table.

Three lamp variants: white spherical diffusers on black, red, and blue printed bases — Design family — shared diffuser, different base forms and colours.

Top view into orange base: coin cell, green TTP223 board, and glowing LED filament — Internals — cell, touch sensor, filament.

Finished orange-base lamp with diffuser, warm glow on a grey surface — Prototype assembled and lit.