90W 3D-printed LED light project

Gabriel Berube

Gabriel Berube

Well-known member
Hi guys,

Just wanted to show you a little LED project I've been working on for more than a year. I've designed and built a prototype single-source LED light, with the housing entirely 3D-printed by me at home. The unit is 90W, daylight-balanced, 90CRI (min) and can be dimmed between 10 and 100%. The 3D-printed plastic housing is heat-resistant so that it won't deform even when left in a car on a hot sunny day, and can be printed out in many colors. The max light output is around 1400 lumens at a distance of 2m (120 degree angle), or 2300 lumens with a 90 degree reflector. I also added a bowen-s mount to use some accessories I already had on hands, and a v-mount battery bracket so that the unit can be as mobile as possible. A 130Wh battery lasts a bit more than 1h40m at full power. The main point of this project was to build myself some LED lights that I could easily repair and customize, and also upgrade when technology gets better. LED manufacturers are still making good strides in lumen/watt efficiency and most video LED manufcaturers are making it very difficult and expensive to upgrade, so I wanted to see if I could do better.

All in all, I'm quite satisfied with how this project turned out, and thus built myself 5 units : 3 daylight and 2 tungsten. I'm currently finishing the design of a custom barndoor holder and also a fresnel lens specially made for this unit. I'm currently renting these units from my little business, and lots of my customers really love 'em, so I thought I'd share this here with you guys :-)

I'll be taking orders soon if any of you want some for your projects! :-P

Joking aside, here are some photos for those curious to see what it looks like, and a photo from a friend who used the unit from far up on one of his shoot. Let me know your thoughts, or if you'd like to see more photos in actions, I always appreciate insights from other professionnals!

90wled_03.jpg90wled_04.jpg90wled_01.jpg
 
Run&Gun said:
Very Cool. Any issues with fan noise?
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None at all, I use 80mm 18dB fans from EBM-Papst, they're quite durable and whisper-quiet. Lots of my customers have tried them and none had any issues when a soundman was needed. I tried to design the casing so that the airflow of the fan doesn't produce more noise than it needs to.
 
leteeci said:
why not just take chinese ARRI fresnel knock-off and install LED inside that housing?
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Good point, and I have to say it's a lot more complicated than it appears to be. I tried it of course, in the months just before embarking on that project. I modded four different lamp-based unit : a 650w chinese knockoff, a DeSisti Leonardo 1K, a DeSisti Magis 300 and three very old broken fresnel which I don't remember the company's name. I ran into a lot of issues : in some the components didn't fit without completely redesigning the carriage, in others heat dissipation and fan flow was problematic in other cases, and I had to do lots of cutting and drilling into each of these units, which was a lot more time-consuming than it appears. Weight was also an issue : the heatsinks are already heavy, and I wanted to design a light that was the lightest possible for small crews to bring haul anywhere easily with v-mount batteries. Also, when I looked at the cost of buying chinese units, plus the already expensive electronics for my prototypes, I found that there was a lot of waste of time, parts, and particularly money. With this design the unit can be manufactured much, much more cheaply.

All in all, printing new casings for the exact components I needed felt a lot more practical, plus I kinda wanted to see if I could be one of the first to try to do 3D printed LED lighting units for cheap that could be repaired and / or upgraded without any hassle :-)
 
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Cool.

How much money do you have in the plastic? I've been tempted to get a 3D printer, but I haven't found the right project to justify it. Special lights may be it.
 
Paul F said:
Cool.

How much money do you have in the plastic? I've been tempted to get a 3D printer, but I haven't found the right project to justify it. Special lights may be it.
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Hi Paul, the total plastic used weights about 350g, and they were printed with PETG filament, which costs around 30$ per kilo, so it cost me around 10-12$ per unit for the plastic. Since you'll be wasting lots of plastic getting your prototype right, I suggest using cheaper PLA filament first to check if the pieces all fit well together, and then print with your choice of filament once you get it right.

If you want to get into 3D printing with a really great printer I've got some recommendations.
1. 3D printers are made for people who like to tinker a LOT, and there are a lot of parameters to learn to be able to fully master 3D printing. Most of the time there's fine tuning to do, depending on the models and/or filament type you're printing with, and the technology is not quite there yet for very easy printing with only the push of a button like with 2D printers.
2. don't go with cheap chinese kits. Most are more for well experienced users, but in the race for cheaper and cheaper printing, some kits are really dangerous to operate (fire hazards from cheap power supplies and connectors mostly).
3. Save yourself some trouble in the beginning and get a 3D printer equipped with a heated bed, a full metal hotend, an autoleveling bed and with a great forum community behind it. The community will be especially important for debuggin or making tweaks and/or upgrades. Yes it'll be more than double the price of most chinese kits, but you'll save heaps of time getting it to work (and frustration) :-)
4. I personally recommend two printers : the Original Prusa i3 MKII, which I own (beware of cheap chinese clones), and the SeeMeCNC Rostock Max V3 delta printer (of which I built some kind of clone from another delta platform). Ideally, but a printer in kit to build yourself instead of a fully built. You'll eventually have to do some periodic maintenance like changing some broken or used up parts, so you might as well already have experience with the assembly of the printer if you want it easier in the long run. The Rostock is more expensive and more complicated to build and operate than the Prusa i3 MKII (1000$ for the Rostock kit VS 700$ for the Prusa i3 kit), but the Rostock is made in the USA, has a bigger build volume, and will ship much more quickly. Both printers have great communities backing 'em up, which is a must for beginners / intermediate enthusiasts IMHO.

Between the two I'd choose the Prusa i3 since I think it's easier to build and operate, but the Rostock is a great tool too with a much bigger printing volume (it takes a lot more space on a desk though).

As a side note, it might be better to print with ABS or more heat-resistant filaments for this kind of project. I personally use PETG mainly because I print inside my house, and printing ABS / ABS-pro types of filament emits lots of airborn particulates which can be really nasty for the lungs. PETG is not as resistant to heat as ABS, but it's foodsafe and has very, very low particulates emissions, so it's totally safe to print inside a home with kids as long as it's in a well ventilated area. If you have an enclosure for your printer it's even safer.

Hope this helps!
 
Thanks for the notes Gabe. Understood about being a tinkerer. I have a Bridgeport 3D CNC mill I built up, so the step over to the 3D printer should be familiar territory.
 
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