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A very small (LED?) light that comes on when you open the medicine cabinet. Night-lights are too bright at 2:00am and require a power plug. Turning on the light is just too painful to consider.
The goal would be to have a _very_ soft white light so that you can be sure you are getting the meds, or
whatever, you are wanting. Too many bottles look and feel alike.
It would be bright enough to illuminate the cabinet and to identify how many pills you have shaken into your hand. Your eyes should not have to adjust to it's brightness.
To work in existing medicine cabinets it would have to have it's own power source. The med-light would have a very small battery/capacitor that the act of opening the cabinet door would charge. The generator would fit either in a hinge or affixed to the top of the cabinet with a string attached to the door.
The light would only have to have a very short life. 20-30 seconds. If the light goes out one would simply close and reopen the door to the cabinet.
Shake to charge flashlight
http://www.modernou.../ee_shakelight.html
There's even a video (if you just can't picture what they are talking about) [gardnertoo, Feb 03 2007]
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use red leds and you'll have less trouble
losing night vision, but you need to come
up with a more realistic power supply.
won't get enough juice just in the act of
opening the door a couple of times to run
this hardly at all. i don't see why this can't
be hooked up to line current when the
cabinet is installed. |
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in the philippines, you can buy a half watt LED night light for 0.76 to 2.30 US dollars. It runs off the mains electricity. Rig a refirgerator style switch on the cabinet's door and you're done. Or else, use battery powered LED's. A few AA batteries in parallel should last a long time. |
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I agree with you on the power supply. Something different may need to be done there. I am hoping that a really smart engineer could solve that problem. If not then possibly a flat battery could be used. I do not want it to take up too much room. With the infrequency of use it could last a long time. |
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One of the selling points, though, would be that you would not need to rewire your bathroom and could be sold to people that already have bathrooms. To require wiring would only open the market to remodels and new homes. |
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I realize that red light is best for night vision but it also obscures red print on bottles. That may or may not be a problem. I currently use the light from my flip phone and it is white, yet not bright. When I wake up and need to take some ibuprofen I can easily identify the bottle and count the pills by it. |
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You know the "shake to charge" flashlights available now? {If not, see link, which includes exciting action video of the product!!} The same principle could be adapted for this product. Instead of shaking, the light would have a pull-cord. A sharp pull would spin the rotor (analgous to the slug in the shake-me version) providing a small charge to a capacitor. Since we only intend to run the light for 30 seconds, a brief charge should be enough. One dimly lit pastry for you (+) |
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this is a simple answer yet not as stylish as some would want. Clear strong tape like scotch but more durable from home depot. Two strips would suffice. one side sticks to inside of door the other strip has a red led or white led stuck to it. Stick it on the tape already stuck to the door. Have wires attached to the led coming out of tape and connect to a battery on the shelf. Have battery lodged or taped or bolted down. Wires taped down across door to prevent tearing of wires. And in the middle of the wires a push button. The button when pushed bridges the battery to the light turning on light. |
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Heck even a small christmas light bulb would work with a 9 volt. |
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My cabinet has glass shelves. Does yours? An LED attached to the underside of these shelves might diffuse the light across the length of them, making it softer. I suspect that most cabinets would have space to tape a 8 volt battery to the underside of the shelf, and it would not be hard to make a switch that remained open when the cabinet was closed. |
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Of course, you might have some difficulty seeing on the top shelf this way... |
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