It’s an interesting question…
There are really two parts to this answer:
- The “NRE” (Non-Recurring Engineering) time that I spent designing the two fabricated pieces and having them made, and the time I spent choosing and sourcing the globes and crystals, and…
- The actual assembly once I had everything ready.
So, for part (1), it probably took several weeks spread out over a year and a half to get everything ready to assemble. There’s actually kind of a funny story (well, it’s funny if you are an engineer) - the LED holders (the cones under the globes) are actually much more difficult to machine than they would appear to be. There is an off-axis hole drilled in them for the wire, and that makes them hard to manufacture. In fact I had to go to China, because the local machine shop was prohibitively expensive (they wanted $35 ea. - I had them made in China for $10). I would have preferred to keep everything local. Anyway, I’m not a Mechanical engineer, and I know just enough drafting to be dangerous. I drew up the plans for the cones, and then gave them to a friend to check (he is a Mechanical engineer). He agreed that my drawings were correct. So, I sent them to the machine shop in China to be quoted, and they drew their own drawings for my approval and fixed my “mistake.” I red-lined them and put them back they way I had drawn them the first time, and the next round of drawings came back identical to what I had sent the first time. I guess they looked at them and thought “nobody would want that - he must have meant this.” In the end, they did a very nice job (although it took 2 months to get the parts).
I ended up driving to a local metal supplier and picking out the piece of aluminum (4’ x 10’) I wanted, and then had it sheared to fit in my SUV. I then drove that to the laser-cutting house, and sat with their CAD guy to make sure everything was going to cut the way I expected. A week later, I drove back to pick up the pieces (I had 6 cut).
I also spent a lot of time going to bead shops and being crystals on ebay until I got the ones I wanted. I ended up buying them in bulk from Asia (they claim to be Swarovski, but I seriously doubt it).
I also needed to test various LEDs. The ones I eded up using are Cree XLAMP neutral-white. They are maybe a little to cool (color temperature), so I may get some slightly warmer-toned ones to try.
I also found the globes one ebay, but I ended up buying 24 of them directly from the distributor.
As I was playing with the design, I found that regular “zip cord” wire was too stiff - the wire would always get somewhat kinked, and so the loops from the lights to the bottom of the fixture wouldn’t hang right. I ended up spending a lot of time sampling different wire types, and finally found a super-flexible silicone sheathed wire that worked perfectly (expensive, of course).
When it came to actually assembling it, my wife went on a trip Wednesday, and was coming back on Sunday, so that put a hard deadline on the project. I probably spent about 12-16 hours over those 5 days getting it all put together. I had to make a fixture to size the support lines to exactly the same length, and machine the hanger which holds everything up (I have a drill press, which helps).
The next thing I need to do is figure out how much each one costs…
(Now, aren’t you sorry you asked?)
