Steven Bennett built a fully open-source, self-balancing desk lamp inspired by Dyson's sliding task light, and published every file on GitHub. The Open Task Light uses extruded aluminum rails, a PCB embedded in the rail that delivers power via pogo pins, a heat pipe concealed inside the extrusion to manage LED thermals, and an ESP32 paired with a dedicated driver running a Cree high-CRI LED. The base rotates on bearings. No exposed wires anywhere.
This is a three-year iteration story. Hackaday covered the prototype in January 2023. Bennett then documented the entire development in a 15-part video series, reworking mechanisms, electronics, and manufacturability one problem at a time. The 50-plus-part BOM adds up, but the finished lamp comes in at well under half the price of the Dyson original.
The reason to read this in full is the engineering discipline on display: every design decision, from the pogo-pin power delivery to the heat pipe routing, solves a specific problem cleanly. Bennett also published a complete assembly guide on Gitbook. The files are live. You can build this now.
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