LED Glass Table
by Jill Fehrenbacher, 05/15/05
Ingo Maurer’s LED Table was on display at the ICFF and at the Ingo Maurer opening party last night. I can’t stop staring at this table. I think its partly due to the “oooh sparkly” effect of a Xmas tree, and also because I can’t figure out where the LEDs are getting their electricity from. It?s quite a startling effect. Although they are wedged between two sheets of glass, the LEDs appear to be floating in thin air. Ingo Maurer’s website says: 278 white LEDs per table top, emitting light on both sides. 230/125 volts, 48 volts DC. INVISIBLE LIVE PARTS. There are tiny transparent wires embedded between the 2 sheets of glass, connecting the LEDs. The lights can be dimmed and even turned off if you suddenly want your LED table to look like a regular glass table again.
The table comes in white, blue or red light, but the white (pictured here) looks the least like the interior of a 6th street Indian restaurant.
For more about Ingo Maurer, read Design Boom’s interview >
“Tiny invisible wires”, eh? There are simply electrically conductive layers of transparent polymer sandwiched between the glass layers to connect the contacts of the LEDs. Tends to be easier to wire up than using intuition and guesswork to solder invisible wires :)