How To Build A Mega 84cm, 480 LEDs Ring Light For $35

August 15, 2015 by Udi Tirosh 17 Comments

Here is a smart ring light fitted for the LED era. I mean we shared a huge kick a$$ ring light build before, but this one is powered by LEDs rather than CFLs and it is just as huge and just as awesome.

This huge contraption was invented by Gvido Mūrnieks who also made a DIY Light Blaster and who I now consider a master woodman/tinkerer/maker kind of guy.

The build starts with a huge piece of plywood which you can get (along with some aluminum angles) from the scraps section of your local DIY store or carpentry.

The wood is then cut into a circle and reinforced with aluminum frame, then the LEDs go in (using plywood and aluminum helps keeping the ring light under 1 kilo)

I guess the hard (or at least tedious) part of making this light, was soldering 80 6-LED strips with lead wires and then soldering each strip to the plus and minus contacts that went around the wooden frame.

A quick calculation shows that 480 LEDs are about 1.5 300-LED strips (around $8 a reel), so the cost is really low for that kind of huge light. The other part is the power supply – a 12V 20A 240W LED power supply (at around $20), which brings the total cost of the thing to $35 sans the scraps.

And the light, it is gorgeous:

You can read more about the light on Gvido’s 2 parts blog (1, 2), but be warned his site is a trove of time-sucking projects.

About Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is the Founder and Editor in Chief of DIYPhotography, he is also a photographer, a relentless entrepreneur, a prolific inventor and a dad, not necessarily in that order

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Dušan DuPe Pethö

Best!!!
David Hennes

You could buy a dimmable ceiling light at Lowe’s and do some modifications.
- Scott E Mc
  
  Details?
Chriss

damn…that thing is so unsafety i would not try to build it…so many possibilitys to get an electric shock…and just think of this thing getting wet…..
- Skulk
  
  you can’t get an electric shock from 12V. Your Bodyresistance is far to high. Everything between 0V and 40V is considered safe to touch.
  
  But there is one part where a short circuit could soon happen. Its on the top Picture, the right half, where the blue wire is bent to the right. It could easily touch the false polarity on the Strip.
  Please considrere soldering EVERY Connection and try yousing shrink-tube for Isolation. Or et least electrical tape.
  
  But actually there would happen much, if there were a shortage. The fuse of your psu might blow. Thats it.
Ken Tam

Ugly light ever
- TheInconvenientRuth
  
  Ugly English Ever.
- Skulk
  
  Ugly personality ever
  - Ken Tam
    
    As an artist, I use the lighting I feel best to render my work… it is very ugly light ouput fo my test and it rendered in the pictures.
fred_marker

This is a great DIY project….You can add a wireless dimmer from eBay for less than $5.00…For those who do nut understand electricity, this is very safe with no shock hazard whatsoever because it runs on 12v.
- Chriss
  
  it’s still unsafety because it has no isolation…. and even if it’s 12V you need a “240W LED power supply” to power your device…
  
  and is it possible to take photos with only the ringlight…don’t think so…either you have to use wide open Aputures…or high iso settings to get the right exposure…it’s only good for the ring catchlight in the eye of the subject…
  - Stepan Maxa
    
    What about read the full article on his web? http://3rdhalf.net/2015/08/11/diy-ringlight-v0-9/2/
    There are sample photos with EXIF info
TheInconvenientRuth

Just wondering why you didn’t paint the wood white and addded a thin whiteplastic bezel on the inner and outer rim? The light is already gorgeous, but I just don’t understand why you didn’t paint it.. You must be losing quite a bit of power this way? Having said that, I could never build this myself without ending up having 4 million people without electricity for 3 days…
MikeDF

I’m making one for my bike
Rick

If I was going to use this for any length of time, I would probably mask off all the LEDs and coat up all the bare wiring with a can of white aerosol Plasti Dip. http://www.amazon.com/Performix-11207-Multi-Purpose-Coating-Aerosol/dp/B000981AA2/ref=pd_sim_263_19?ie=UTF8&refRID=1W2KN085QNH07E8F6FFE
Skyreiter

If you don’t mind your models all looking like they’re aliens with that stupid ring reflection in their eyes.
Skulk

Thanks for your article an details on your ringlight. I’m going to build one soon.
Whats the actuall inner and outer diameter?