How to make your own colour changing DIY LED ring light for under $30

Ring lights can be a lot of fun, and they’ve certainly become more popular over the last few years, especially for video. And while ring lights have come down in price a lot, you’re still looking around at least $110 for a basic one that can only do daylight and tungsten (if you’re lucky).

But what if you could make one for less than $30 that would give you every could you could think of? That’s what YouTuber Peter Drazy does in this video, using just an off-the-shelf strip of LEDs and a wire frame for making wreaths. Oh and a whole lot of sticky tape.

The basic process is simple, requiring only a few items.

• Metal wreath ring – $5.87
• LED Light strip – $19.99
• Aluminium foil
• Cardboard
• Sticky tape

The process is pretty simple, although I think Peter uses a little more sticky tape than I would like. With enough layers, I think that tape might cause something of a strange colour cast. Of course, you don’t build something like this for colour accuracy, you build it for wacky colours for effect. Still, it might be worth looking into a hot glue gun as an alternative method of attaching everything.

1. Cut a ring out of cardboard to match the size of the wreath ring.
2. Cover the cardboard in foil and tape (or glue) it down.
3. Attach the LED lights to the wreath ring
4. Attach the wreath ring to the cardboard
5. Power it up

You’ll want to make sure that all your cables are safely attached. And if you have to use tape, then go for it, but I still think I’d go with the hot glue gun. It’s certainly not the prettiest ringlight out there, but who cares? Nobody’s going to see it – well, not unless you make a video showing people how to make one. All that matters is how the light looks coming off it.

Have you ever made your own ring light?

[via No Film School]