While buying supplies for The Artist’s Studio, I picked up a battery operated flickering firelight from Minimum World for The Aero Squadron Lounge.
If you recall, I had hardwired the fireplace bulb, which hampers the removal of the removable fireplace.
Close-up of the recess and fireplace wire.
I have to slip the bulb out of the hole drilled for it in order to truly remove the fireplace.
Before deconstructing any of the hard wiring, I made modifications to see if the new battery light would work for this instance. I fed the bulb and wire into the fireplace to see if the wire was long enough.
Since the back wall of the fireplace is made of foam, I was able to cut a space to house the battery mechanism, switch side down, as well as some excess wire.
It worked! :D
I will probably paint the wire black to blend in more, but it doesn’t really show with the fire screen in place.
The flickering isn’t as smooth as the LEDs from Evan Designs that I used in the jack-o’-lantern, but it is bright enough and relatively convincing. Even a solid red bulb with this battery setup would be nice to have for fireplaces and stoves.
I decided to leave the hardwired bulb in as a backup since it is already in place, so I curled the wire and bulb into the recess made for it.
The fireplace with its new battery firelight sits perfectly in place and is now quickly and easily removable.
My final assessment is it’s a great light for easy access with the caveat that it does not have a completely realistic flickering motion for imitating fire. It is somewhat pricey, too, but overall I’m pleased with it and would likely use it again in the right situation. If I had enough room for full hard wiring, however, I would use the orange flickering LEDs from Evan Designs instead. Those are brighter and more realistic, but they have a larger battery adapter that’s not as easily hidden as this unit from Minimum World.
