Making a ring light with LED's - need some advice

[DavidD]

Making a ring light with LED's...some advice
I want to make a ring light for the front of my HC1 camera. I have a bunch of LED lights (10) from the electronic's store and I want to fashion them in a series with a battery pack (maybe 2 AAA's) for the off/on. Is there anything I need to know about setting these up in series? Is a plain soldering job with copper wire going to do?

Thanks in advance.

[mikkowilson]

10LEDs in series will require about 25volts to run. That's a good deal of AAA batteries. (14 in fact)

In parallel you could run the LEDs off 2 batteries in series (3v is about right for LEDs), however AAA batteries probably wouldn't provide enough current for 10 powerful LEDS. You need either bigger batteries, or use less LEDs.

- Mikko

[andybiz_2005]

Hey mikko, I'm also researching into making a ring lite for my DVX using LED lights as they are very battery saving & those lights lasts I think a few hundred hours of more before they cong out. I'm sketching out the design & will probably hot-wire the LEDs in parallel. I'm planning on puting about 50 or more small LED's on a round plate-like platter & mounting this platter on the metal lens hood of my DVX. For the battery pack, I'll be using the same battery as the Viten 100watt halogen video light which has a shoulder strap.

[chuck coburn]

Leds like a constant current source of power for a few different reasons. Here's one site with some info and there are a bunch more out there with more detailed info/

http://www.laminaceramics.com/docs/Lamina_Driver_Application_Note.pdf

Chuck

[chuck coburn]

Here's some more chatter about leds from the HBS site.

http://hbsboard.com/index.php/topic,2631.0.html

[DavidD]

I am going to try with two double AA batteries with a casing for a toy I have. I can run three so far without difficulty, but yes, I will have to run it in parallel when I add more. I want to go for 15-20 all together and see what they produces. Since I am running off a battery pack, I don't think I need resistors, right?

[readw]

Here is a link to a led ring light i made some time ago.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=38055

Unfortunately I have not had time to do anything further with it.

[DavidD]

Looks great, but do you have a parts list? Where did you get the stuff?

Also went and bought some more LED's today from the $dollar store because the electronic store was closed. They came from keychain lights and work really well. Not sure of the colour temp of them though...

[morten]

10LEDs in series will require about 25volts to run. That's a good deal of AAA batteries. (14 in fact)

In parallel you could run the LEDs off 2 batteries in series (3v is about right for LEDs), however AAA batteries probably wouldn't provide enough current for 10 powerful LEDS. You need either bigger batteries, or use less LEDs.

- Mikko

oy... that's a little too simplistic Mikko. there are many different types of LEDs and they all have different power requirements. in fact it's very complicated to figure out exactly what voltage and power is needed because of this.

first off you have to find an LED sequence calculator that will tell you what power and what kind of resistance you need. this is vitally important because if you feed the bulbs too much power you'll burn them out. same goes for too little power. Then you have to figure out your sequence and finally you have to solder it all together.

take a look at this project: http://www.instructables.com/id/EIOPDJN9KZEWYFMCNY/?ALLSTEPS
he explains how to solder everything together.

I'm going to build a ring light myself - I have everything I need, just haven't gotten around to putting it together myself. my research showed me that it's actually cheaper to buy already assembled parts and then just retrofit them to whatever you need. for a ringlight I bought one of these:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/UFO-Portable-Camping-24-LED-Hanger-Light-White_W0QQitemZ190072693921QQihZ009QQcategoryZ1069 87QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

already soldered and ready to go. all I'm doing is cutting it out, gluing it to a filger and I'm good to go.

mor10

[Bob Hill]

For those of you wanting to use discreet LEDS here is a link to an online utility that outputs the appropriate resistor array for an LED arrayed light.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/led_info.htm

Morten,

One thing you should really watch out for on those already made fixtures is that they are almost always 10000K color lamp which is very very blue. Just a thought.

Bob

[Shane Jackson]

Here is one I made for my sony camera. It is ghetto looking but I am not finished. I use it for taking pictures of gemstones.....

http://www.wholesalepaintballshop.com/DSC03712.jpg

I run it of a cr123 rechargable battery. now keep in mind I shoot very close.... I am useing 120 degree (wide angle) led's because I am so close.