These are quite handy for getting light where I need it, but I often ended up wishing that the lamps had just a little more reach.
My solution to this problem was to make another swing arm, attached to the wall, and plug the lamp into that. This gives me one extra link worth of reach.
I wasn't sure how well this would work when I made my extenders, so I didn't make it as long as perhaps I could have. Although I find the extra 25 cm I get with this method already makes a significant difference.
The lamp was originally stuck into the block of wood mounted on the wall. The extended arm
has a dowel that plugs into this hole, plus another screw at the bottom, to give it
more rigidity against tilting down or twisting.
I made another lamp extender for the swing arm lamp near my table saw. This one again has two points on whih it pivots to give it rigidity.
Again, perhaps I should have made it longer, but I didn't realize just how well this approach would work when I built the lamp extender. I may yet replace it with a longer one. But even with the short one, the reach of my lamp is now about 1.1 meters from the pivot.
Also see Ron Walters Scissor extending lamp
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