LightBox for 3rd world and disaster relief

Last crawled date: 1 year, 10 months ago

Learning of countries like India using kerosene lamps in unventilated huts late at night to provide illumination. And how the smoke produced by these lamps is a constant and prevalent issue, causing respiratory ailments in young and old alike. I thought to design a portable, solar charged LED light appliance that would be simple, rugged, and take all kinds of punishment that could be seen in rough conditions.

The design is as simple as I could make, dual purpose injection molding means only one mold to make multiple halves of the unit.
The entire appliance would be completely sealed, (Close to IP67) and would be made of HMWPE which would allow the unit to float should it be thrown into water. Additionally should be able to handle some extremely dirty conditions.
The square shape makes it easy to pack/ship.
The side selector uses a magnet along with a reed switch to turn it off/on, preventing any possibility of contaminant ingress via the power selector.

Internally it would have a small 12vdc 1.3ah SLA battery.
There's an accommodation for an 'electrical block' to allow for charging/electrical management. I didn't go so far as to work out what would need to be in this space.

The appliance would be easily manufactured, assembled, distributed, and reclaimed for refurbishment/recycling.

Use would be simply leave it outdoors to collect sunlight, and then bring indoors to provide clean light. It's thought that multiple reed switches/magnet catches would determine how many of the strips would be turned on. How complex the lighting profiles would be hasn't been worked out yet.