How to Make a Bright LED Panel for 20$

- What is up everybody, In this tutorial I am going to show you how to make a super bright LED light panel which is great for video lighting due to its natural white color temperature and it wont cost you more than 20$ to build it.

- For this project we are gonna need a 10m of led stip wire and a 100W step down voltage regulator.

- We also gonna need a wooden or plastic sheet that is about 45 x 35 cm in length and a steel bar that will serve as a base holder. You could also use an aluminum that you would need to bend in a bench vise but I had a steel one already in my shop.

Part list:

- led strips - 12$ - : https://goo.gl/0bx739

- 100W step down converter - 3$ - : https://goo.gl/dt2ryl

-plastic sheet - 3$ - :

-steel bar - 2$ - :

- LED strips have marks on every 5 cm where you can cut them in half so I cut it on every 40 cm which gave me 25 equal strips that we are gonna glue it on plastic sheet later on.

- Now we need to cut our plastic plate to a length of 45 x 35 cm.

- I also draw a line which will help me place all the strips in parallel to each other.

- Now simply peel back the adhesive backing and attach your strips to a plastic sheet.

- Some strips had a very bad adhesion, so I need to hot glue them back in place.

- Next thing we need is an old cable that is at least 60 cm in length.

-Peel of the plastic insulation so you end up only with a bear copper wire.

- Cut off the excessive length and hot glue it on both sides to prevent it from moving while soldering

- I strip down some old cable and cut it on every centimeter to make a connection between the main cable and led strips.

- I choose that my first side is going to be a plus so I connect a plus terminal on every strip to a main cable wire. I did the same on the other side except I connect a minus on every strip to a main wire.

- That is probably gonna take you a lot of time so after you finish cut of the ends and we can test our panel for the first time.

- For now everything is working fine, so lets continue with building the frame.

-I cut 2 x 45 cm and 2 x 35 cm wooden strips at 45°angle and glue them in a solid frame.

- While we are waiting for glue to dry I cut 2 x 16 cm and 1 x 35 cm steel bars with an angle grinder.

- Then I weld them together with a stick welder on 45 amps and smooth the corners with a grinder.

- Now we need to drill some 6 mm holes in the wooden frame and the steel base.

- If it is everything ok after inserting the screws the final thing is to sand the whole frame a bit and mount the led strip panel to our frame with a few screws.

- At the back also attach a step down converter with two small screws in the middle and connect it with main cable with another two 20 cm in length wires.

- After that, drill a 5 cm hole in the middle of the steel base so we could later attach it to the tripod.

- To prevent iron from oxidizing I quickly coat it with anti corrosion paint and we are almost done.

- While waiting for paint to dry I modeled a simple wing nut frame for a nut and bold so we can easily adjust the angle of our panel.

- For the power source I used an old laptop's power adapter which is just right for this project . Strip the ends and connect it to the step down converter. I also put some velcro tape on the back of the panel so it can hold the adapter in place.

- Last but not least, we need to mount the whole panel to the tripod with a M5 screw and a bold. Secure it tightly and our panel is finished.

- With the potentiometer at the back we can adjust the output voltage and with that dim the LEDs for how much we need to.

- The panel is ideal for video shooting or product photography due to its natural white color temperature.

- We can also easily change the angle of the panel in case we need to and that is pretty much it.

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