Project Background

Ledison is a wall sconce designed to look like the first light bulbs introduced by Thomas Edison over 100 years ago but without using bulbs as a light source. Original Edison bulbs run very hot and use much electricity. Many people preferred buying modern Edison bulbs in recent decades, which were incandescent LED bulbs that ran cool and burnt brighter at lower wattage, usually between 40W to 150W.

The design challenge was to create a wall sconce powered by a 3-up XPL LED module by CREE; it runs at only 9 watts and can be wired (AC) or battery (DC) powered.

​

Design Concept

As an homage to Thomas Edison, Ledison was stylized antique and steampunk. Steampunk is a retro-futuristic sub-genre of science fiction that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. The Ledison sconce is mounted to walls with cleat hardware hidden inside its wooden base. The bent metal tubing in the prototype was bathroom plumbing. The main casing for the LED is made of clear acrylic tubing; a spiraling pattern could be sandblasted onto the acrylic, so it glows like filament when light passes through the tubing.