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How to build your own realistic artificial sun with soap and a satellite dish

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Simulating daylight with artificial lighting is not a trivial task. You’re faking a light that’s 93 million miles away. That means it’s an extremely tiny light source with light rays that flow almost parallel to each other, which has a huge effect on the shadows. But that’s not the only factor in daylight. There’s also that blue sky.

So, how can we set about reproducing it realistically? Well, Matt over at DIY Perks has a solution which, naturally, is a DIY one. And it does it by recycling an old satellite TV dish and combining it with a high powered LED (he recommends this one if you want to try it for yourself). It’s an absolutely fascinating approach that looks a lot more at the actual science of daylight than most photographers and filmmakers do.

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Here is the world’s most powerful video LED blowing up a power supply

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LEDs are getting more capable and more powerful every year. And this one claims to have the crown at the moment as the world’s most powerful COB LED designed specifically for video use. It costs an insane $1,350, requires 1500 Watts of power, it’s 5600K daylight and has a CRI of 95+. As an LED addict, Matt at DIY Perks managed to get his hands on one to test, but in doing so, he blew up two power supplies.

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How to turn a broken LCD TV into a DIY LED light panel

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One of the things I love the most about DIY projects is that they can give a new life to the items that are destroyed beyond salvation. In this video, Matthew Perks of DIY Perks will show you how to repurpose a broken LCD TV or monitor and turn it into an amazing LED light panel. It almost perfectly simulates daylight, and it’s useful for photographers as well as filmmakers.

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How to build your own colour-changing DIY studio lights

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There are no two ways around it, high quality continuous LED lights are expensive. When you need a good amount of light and a high CRI that passes all the necessary certifications and safety checks, that’s just the way it is.

Sure, there are cheaper LEDs out there, but they’re often not very good. They have colour issues or aren’t very powerful. But if you’re handy with tools and a soldering iron, there may be a better, inexpensive DIY option, as this video from Matt Perks illustrates.

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This 1,000 Watt LED light is so bright it can turn night into day

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So, just how bright is a 1,000 Watt stadium LED light? Well, Matt Perks wanted to find out, so he got one. And, as it turns out, it’s pretty bright. It’s not every day you get to see something like this up close and personal, and it’s interesting to see how a massive powerful light like this is constructed.

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This is what the light from a 500W, $500 LED looks like

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LEDs are developing at a ridiculous pace lately. They’re getting more colour accurate and much more powerful. The power of LEDs often comes at some expense, though. While LEDs do run much cooler than traditional tungsten lights, they can still get rather hot.

In this video, Matthew at DIY Perks unboxes a very beefy 500 Watt LED. After hooking up the power, we see just how bright it is. What’s particularly crazy about it, though, is that the LED itself isn’t much bigger than a postage stamp. Everything else is just to extract the heat to prevent the LED from burning itself out.

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How to build the ultimate DIY smartphone projector

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Smartphones are fantastic tools for showing off our work, watching movies, or even playing games. Their “big” problem, though, is that their screens are rather small. This means if you want it bigger, you must connect it up to a TV or use a projector. Projectors for phones have been on the market now for a couple of years, but most of the decent ones are quite expensive. So, why not make your own?

This video from Matthew at DIY Perks shows us how to build our own “Ultimate Smartphone Projector” from scratch. Matthew first shows us a more traditional DIY smartphone projector. But that type of projector has some issues, which Matthew highlights. Those problems are solved with his rather ingenious periscope-style design.

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Get perfect sound in your videos with $5 DIY sound absorbing panels

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Getting quality sound in your video can be tricky. Even when you have a great microphone and field recorder, you’re hindered by the environment. Outside we have traffic, birds and other noises to deal with. Indoors, the walls echo, and our voices can sound hollow.

Outdoors, you’re on your own, but indoors, Matt from DIY Perks has a great and inexpensive solution. In his new video, he shows us how to make some sound absorbing panels using old towels and a wooden frame.

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Stop your high power DIY LED flashlights from overheating with liquid cooling

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We’ve posted one or two high power DIY LED builds before, but these types of LED have a big problem. They generate a lot of heat, which means they require big heat sinks or very limited use if you don’t want them to melt.

Matthew Perks from DIY Perks has come up with a great liquid cooled solution based around a Corsair Hydro H90 CPU cooler to get around this problem and he’s documented the entire build process in his new video.

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