Homemade $2 trouble light. Blinding cheap goodness!

[Wagnerwerks]

Sooooo... I hate every trouble light I've ever owned. My first, 20 years ago, burned me every time I used it... My second, wasn't bright enough to do any good.... My third was a rechargable that the internal batteries die after 30 mins of use... Also not that bright IMO.

So I needed a new under the hood light for work and all the other guys were getting the latest snapon offering for around 200 bucks. I'm cheap. I can't spend that on a light. So I started looking into LEDs. I found out about 5630 LEDs in a roll on ebay. I ordered a roll of 300 for $13.99 and started messing around with a few... Here's some pics of what I came up with. It's so stinking bright I may have to make a smaller one.

 

[BugaBoots]

What is it mounted to? How are you powering it, cord or battery?

 

[Wagnerwerks]

Sorry... I was writing the next post and my ipad went dead.

Sooo... I mounted the LEDs on a piece of channel aluminum I had laying around. These strips of lights are self adhesive, but I still put a coat of automotive goop over them and a bit under the ends to insulate the connections. Then I mounted a couple hard drive magnets, one in the back of the channel and one under the shrink tube I used for the grip. The wiring runs through a hole in the front to the back in the channel and out the handle... A bit of shrink tubing and voila. It's nice and neat. I found an old 12v adapter from an old charger to power it and I also made a set of alligator clips to clip it right on a car battery. It has a pretty low draw and doesn't discharge a battery quickly. I also use my jumper pack.

Here's some more pics. The last one is a little roll of LEDs rolled up before use. This light uses 24 LEDs... It's actually only $1.24 worth of lights.

 

[BugaBoots]

I may have to give this a try for my service truck. Thanks for the idea!

 

[Philbert]

Very creative!

I bought some smaller, LED work lights just to try and they are amazing. Not the trouble light style, like you made, but to replace those work lights with the halogen tube bulbs that get so hot, and break a lot.

These put out a lot of light and don't get hot at all. 13 watts, 830 lumens.I have them hanging in my garage, not on the stands shown. Not sure how long they will last, but really impressed so far.

Philbert

 

[Wagnerwerks]

These LEDs have a 50000 hour rating.... Time will tell.