MattinSTL
Sound Modulator
So you want to save some $$$ on lighting, but you'd like an effective lighting tool. It's easy to see the appeal in CFL. Compact fluorescent lighting offers a lot of advantages for DIY design.
This thread isn't intended to say that this is the only way to do this or even the best way... but this is how I made a couple of economy fixtures for my own personal use... and a recent thread prompted me to humbly offer some suggestions of which you can take what you like and leave the rest.
First I would say that safety is our primary concern. That means having a solid and secure housing in which to install your wiring, sockets, and anything else you may want to increase the effectiveness of your new lighting tool... for me that means individually switchable bulbs (because CFLs still get too hot to comfortably touch, so I'd rather not have to touch any bulbs to add or subtract output)... and I also wanted a means to mount a softbox to my creation... as well as mount my light on any light stand or c-stand in my kit.
For me the logical choice is a cake pan. You can pretty much choose the size of your bank and then choose the size of your cake pan. There are many options available to you as well. Walmart has some reasonably exotic, all aluminum pans that are exceptionally thick and well made for under $10... but they lack the "ears" that you see in the ultra-cheap pans that I used here. The side handles (that I'm calling ears) are on most of the cake pans out there... and for ease of construction I'd suggest getting a pan that has these.
The pans I used are about 7" x 7" inside usable space. It's easy to find them in 8x8 and 9x9... as well as rectangular in other dimensions. Be sure to look at the CFL bulbs that you intend to use so that when you make your array you have adequate distance between the bulbs! The CFLs I use are Sunalux, which are around $13-14 per bulb, but they are pretty close to true daylight at about 5500k... and there really isn't any green tinge. Overall I'm happy with this brand. The bulbs I'm using are also only 2" in diameter (looking down at the spiral from the end)... which means that I could use a smaller pan and have the bulbs closer together. There's no real advantage with CFLs in having them too close though... so if you don't feel like worrying about it, I would use an 8-9" square pan.
Mount the sockets 3 across the top, 1 on each side, and 3 across the bottom. This is logical because putting a bulb at the center doesn't really gain you much in comparison to the other bulbs. Light that is emitted directly into the other bulbs is mostly wasted... we want as much surface area as possible open to the room and emitting out from the fixture. The sides of the CFL are emitting much more light then the tips, because of the obvious difference in surface area. I considered making a CFL fixture that had the bulbs sideways, but you'll understand why I didn't do that later.
Leaving the center open also allows you to recess your sockets, so that the ballast base of the CFL doesn't stick out so much... thereby making your fixture safer by lowering the chance of bulb breakage... plus it just looks better.
I used some scrap aluminum plate that I had laying around from an old sign. I simply laid my cake pan on this material and drew a pattern. Then I cut this out with a jig saw. Simple, no? Get a Sharpy... it makes it easy to layout the holes if you sink the sockets also.
For the holes I used the appropriate sized hole-saw on a drill press.
Ground your fixture. This is easy if you use a 3 wire cord with a 3 prong plug. Your pan is metal and all you need to do is use a green grounding screw, toothed washer, and a nut... simple. It's super-easy and a good idea to do this... even though these low power fixtures could operate fine with just a 2 wire, 2 plug configuration... but if you do it that way then that's your choice.
Wiring your fixture. This is pretty easy. To have a separate main switch obviously you have to have the power coming from the wall hit that main switch first... that means the black (hot) wire of your power cord needs to run through this first switch. After that you must create some sort of a power distribution bus... which can be as simple as a big wire-nut as you see pictured. Please note that I ALSO soldered my wires so that none can pull loose! I also used a nylon wire-tie to FURTHER insure that no wires can come loose! Note that each black wire is going to the OFF position of each individual switch. Note yet again that each switch is positioned appropriate to each SOCKET... so that from the back of the fixture you know which bulb you're switching w/o seeing the face.
Finishing the wiring on this fixture will be as simple as running the white wire from each ON position of each switch (the opposite end from the one that's wired with black now)... back to another soldered "power bus" (wire-nut)... and then to the appropriate white wire of the incoming power cord.
The gray power connector you see there is a Neutrik Powercon connector. If you go that route you will have to make your own power cords as well... which is as simple as cutting off the end of an extension cord and adding the mating Powercon connector. For the record incoming power for Powercon is supposed to be BLUE... not GRAY... but this is what I had laying around and if somebody tries to power some other piece of pro gear from my light they won't hurt the gear or themselves... unless stupidity alone causes pain. So while that should be BLUE... it's not hurting anything... to do the reverse in a professional environment could be dangerous though... being able to put power INTO a device that doesn't want it... could be bad. So long story short... if you are so inclined to get Powercon connectors then just get the BLUE ones and be done with it... they are NOT interchangeable.
A simple computer IEC style power cord and connector are much cheaper... and basically idiot proof... so feel free to take my suggestion and go that route. I just thought I should explain that power connector before somebody asks.
Mounting the light. For mounting options on the light you'll see I have a RAM Mounts ball... you can use whatever you want for this, but I just happen to have a ton of RAM parts that I use and enjoy. If you get a thicker cake pan then the reinforcements that you see in mine won't be necessary. I just happened to do this with the cheapest cake pan you can buy... but feel free to improve on this.
Making this light extremely useful. To get the most out of this light I highly suggest you get a softbox! You can get softboxes of all shapes and price ranges, but in my professional work we use the old 24x32 pretty darn much. So if you're looking for a place to start... I'd say that's a good size. If you get a flash-only rated box you are taking a risk... but that's up to you. I'd say that if a hot-light rated box isn't too much more then it's a good idea to just bite the bullet and get the safer box. If this light never has anything but CFLs in it then somebody could argue that a flash box will suffice, but I won't make that argument. The smartest thing to do is get a regular softbox that can handle hotlights.
Looking at the back of the box you see two nuts sticking up. Those are coupling nuts that I cut down to be the exact height as the thickness of the speedrings that I have. From the inside of the box I have small bolts holding the coupling nuts tight and in position... and from the other side you can mount the speedring easily with the remaining threads. I ONLY did this because I can use the speedrings that I normally use on other tungsten lights... so if you buy a speedring specifically for this project you can simply bolt it to the pan... which I may eventually do anyway. (The speedrings I'm using are $100/ea... so until I get some of the cheaper rings I'm not doing that with a DIY fixture)
The cheapest speedring option is a Photoflex. They make composite rings as cheap as $24.50... but there is a really solid choice... the SC800SC for about $37.50. Once you get a softbox, speedring, and some way to mount this thing on a stand... you can do anything a Diva 200-400 can do... and a lot of things that a Diva can't.
Good Luck.
This thread isn't intended to say that this is the only way to do this or even the best way... but this is how I made a couple of economy fixtures for my own personal use... and a recent thread prompted me to humbly offer some suggestions of which you can take what you like and leave the rest.
First I would say that safety is our primary concern. That means having a solid and secure housing in which to install your wiring, sockets, and anything else you may want to increase the effectiveness of your new lighting tool... for me that means individually switchable bulbs (because CFLs still get too hot to comfortably touch, so I'd rather not have to touch any bulbs to add or subtract output)... and I also wanted a means to mount a softbox to my creation... as well as mount my light on any light stand or c-stand in my kit.
For me the logical choice is a cake pan. You can pretty much choose the size of your bank and then choose the size of your cake pan. There are many options available to you as well. Walmart has some reasonably exotic, all aluminum pans that are exceptionally thick and well made for under $10... but they lack the "ears" that you see in the ultra-cheap pans that I used here. The side handles (that I'm calling ears) are on most of the cake pans out there... and for ease of construction I'd suggest getting a pan that has these.
The pans I used are about 7" x 7" inside usable space. It's easy to find them in 8x8 and 9x9... as well as rectangular in other dimensions. Be sure to look at the CFL bulbs that you intend to use so that when you make your array you have adequate distance between the bulbs! The CFLs I use are Sunalux, which are around $13-14 per bulb, but they are pretty close to true daylight at about 5500k... and there really isn't any green tinge. Overall I'm happy with this brand. The bulbs I'm using are also only 2" in diameter (looking down at the spiral from the end)... which means that I could use a smaller pan and have the bulbs closer together. There's no real advantage with CFLs in having them too close though... so if you don't feel like worrying about it, I would use an 8-9" square pan.
Mount the sockets 3 across the top, 1 on each side, and 3 across the bottom. This is logical because putting a bulb at the center doesn't really gain you much in comparison to the other bulbs. Light that is emitted directly into the other bulbs is mostly wasted... we want as much surface area as possible open to the room and emitting out from the fixture. The sides of the CFL are emitting much more light then the tips, because of the obvious difference in surface area. I considered making a CFL fixture that had the bulbs sideways, but you'll understand why I didn't do that later.
Leaving the center open also allows you to recess your sockets, so that the ballast base of the CFL doesn't stick out so much... thereby making your fixture safer by lowering the chance of bulb breakage... plus it just looks better.
I used some scrap aluminum plate that I had laying around from an old sign. I simply laid my cake pan on this material and drew a pattern. Then I cut this out with a jig saw. Simple, no? Get a Sharpy... it makes it easy to layout the holes if you sink the sockets also.
For the holes I used the appropriate sized hole-saw on a drill press.
Ground your fixture. This is easy if you use a 3 wire cord with a 3 prong plug. Your pan is metal and all you need to do is use a green grounding screw, toothed washer, and a nut... simple. It's super-easy and a good idea to do this... even though these low power fixtures could operate fine with just a 2 wire, 2 plug configuration... but if you do it that way then that's your choice.
Wiring your fixture. This is pretty easy. To have a separate main switch obviously you have to have the power coming from the wall hit that main switch first... that means the black (hot) wire of your power cord needs to run through this first switch. After that you must create some sort of a power distribution bus... which can be as simple as a big wire-nut as you see pictured. Please note that I ALSO soldered my wires so that none can pull loose! I also used a nylon wire-tie to FURTHER insure that no wires can come loose! Note that each black wire is going to the OFF position of each individual switch. Note yet again that each switch is positioned appropriate to each SOCKET... so that from the back of the fixture you know which bulb you're switching w/o seeing the face.
Finishing the wiring on this fixture will be as simple as running the white wire from each ON position of each switch (the opposite end from the one that's wired with black now)... back to another soldered "power bus" (wire-nut)... and then to the appropriate white wire of the incoming power cord.
The gray power connector you see there is a Neutrik Powercon connector. If you go that route you will have to make your own power cords as well... which is as simple as cutting off the end of an extension cord and adding the mating Powercon connector. For the record incoming power for Powercon is supposed to be BLUE... not GRAY... but this is what I had laying around and if somebody tries to power some other piece of pro gear from my light they won't hurt the gear or themselves... unless stupidity alone causes pain. So while that should be BLUE... it's not hurting anything... to do the reverse in a professional environment could be dangerous though... being able to put power INTO a device that doesn't want it... could be bad. So long story short... if you are so inclined to get Powercon connectors then just get the BLUE ones and be done with it... they are NOT interchangeable.
A simple computer IEC style power cord and connector are much cheaper... and basically idiot proof... so feel free to take my suggestion and go that route. I just thought I should explain that power connector before somebody asks.
Mounting the light. For mounting options on the light you'll see I have a RAM Mounts ball... you can use whatever you want for this, but I just happen to have a ton of RAM parts that I use and enjoy. If you get a thicker cake pan then the reinforcements that you see in mine won't be necessary. I just happened to do this with the cheapest cake pan you can buy... but feel free to improve on this.
Making this light extremely useful. To get the most out of this light I highly suggest you get a softbox! You can get softboxes of all shapes and price ranges, but in my professional work we use the old 24x32 pretty darn much. So if you're looking for a place to start... I'd say that's a good size. If you get a flash-only rated box you are taking a risk... but that's up to you. I'd say that if a hot-light rated box isn't too much more then it's a good idea to just bite the bullet and get the safer box. If this light never has anything but CFLs in it then somebody could argue that a flash box will suffice, but I won't make that argument. The smartest thing to do is get a regular softbox that can handle hotlights.
Looking at the back of the box you see two nuts sticking up. Those are coupling nuts that I cut down to be the exact height as the thickness of the speedrings that I have. From the inside of the box I have small bolts holding the coupling nuts tight and in position... and from the other side you can mount the speedring easily with the remaining threads. I ONLY did this because I can use the speedrings that I normally use on other tungsten lights... so if you buy a speedring specifically for this project you can simply bolt it to the pan... which I may eventually do anyway. (The speedrings I'm using are $100/ea... so until I get some of the cheaper rings I'm not doing that with a DIY fixture)
The cheapest speedring option is a Photoflex. They make composite rings as cheap as $24.50... but there is a really solid choice... the SC800SC for about $37.50. Once you get a softbox, speedring, and some way to mount this thing on a stand... you can do anything a Diva 200-400 can do... and a lot of things that a Diva can't.
Good Luck.
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In additional to this light, what do you recommend. Perhaps I should just rent? (I do have a home made light I created out of 6 x 32w philips T8 tubes and shop light fixtures, it works very well but the light is very diffused and transport is probably gonna be a pain + color temp is 4100K but you can buy packs of 10 T8 bulbs for $20! Does make a good studio light though all for about $60.)