PhotographyBacklit bathroom mirror
When we moved to our current home, we had to totally whack the bathroom and start anew. When out shopping, we bought a 60 by 60 cm mirror that has its outer 5 cm ground down, matching the ground glass shower cubicle we also got. I installed a small halogen lamp above it, for which the 12 V AC transformer was neatly tucked behind the lowered ceiling. The lamp holder broke after a year or two, and we were unable to find a replacement. The original lamp holder was also no longer available.
The mirror is slightly tilted down, leaving a space behind the top part of the mirror. Enough for a pair of CCFL tubes. I had 5 of these lying around from a project that was never finished. I added a bridge rectifier and a buffer capacitor to supply the CCFL inverters with adequate DC. Now you tech heads might be thinking: "Hey, 12 V AC rectified and buffered gives you about 15 volts. That's really pushing it for the average 12 V CCFL inverter". And you'd be right, unless you want the rig to run at a little over 12 Volts, say 14 Volts, and you take a too-smallish buffer cap that lets the voltage sag about 1 Volt.
1. This is the rig with the mirror off the wall. From the top the AC power comes in, runs through a rectifier and cap (wrapped in black tape) then splits to two CCFL inverters and two CCFL tubes.
2. The mirror in place. There's enough light to take a photo hendheld. Yes, the mirror got smudged when I was working. I'll clean it later.
White CCFL tubes emit a cold kind of white. In order to warm them up a bit, I placed two gold coloured reflectors behind the tubes, which gives a very nice touch to it.
© Joris van den Heuvel, Fuzzcraft.com