# Shop lighting



## mattthemuppet2 (Jan 7, 2015)

Hi all,

I figured I'd put all of my shop lighting projects into one thread to save cluttering up the forum with individual projects. This is mostly an electrical thing, but there's some machining in there somewhere 

Here are some that I made a while back:

Lightbar (5-6W), uses a 400mA mains driver and 4 Nichia 119 LEDs. They're ~4000K colour temp, 90+CRI, all from Fasttech.com, cost $1 each. They're a bit of a pain to reflow onto stars as they have 2 pads instead of 3 like other 3535 LEDs, but not a major problem.



Converted desk lamp (2W), uses a 5V wall wart in the base, 2 AMC7135 current limiting chips (total 700mA) and a single 119 LED. The head is a bit top heavy, so the next one will get a finned heatsink instead of a lump of alu



Converted drill press lamp (<1W) on my 15in Walker Turner drill press. I've absolutely no idea if it's original or not. This one uses a 12V 150mA driver (from one of those 12V halogen replacement bulbs) and a 12V wall wart


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jan 7, 2015)

Just finished this one. The CFL in my garage/ shop is pretty useless in cold weather and doesn't light at all below freezing. Had to do something about that 

CPU heatsink from a scrapped Mac G3 or G4. Pulled off the fins to fit the base of a blown CFL and then milled the base flat.



rough band sawed a lump of alu to fit inside the CFL base



drilled and tapped to fit a stub arbor



turned down




all fits together!




250mA driver from Buyincoins (cost a dollar or so)




All wired up and working - LED is a 12V XM-L easywhite (essentially 4 3V XPE LEDs in series), supposedly warm white (2700K) but it seems cooler, more like the the 4000K of the others. I'll have to ask my friend who gave it to me if he can remember.




some comparison shots. Camera was on automatic, so the CFL is relatively brighter than it appears in reality

18W CFL, 4C temp



plain LED



with 60deg optic



with 60deg optic and light bar on



next up is a lightbar for the right side, over the drill press


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jan 12, 2015)

I can't finish my light bar until the next batch of LEDs arrives from China, so I figured I'd make this work light for my little bandsaw in the room next to my garage. The light in there is dismal and wearing a headlamp to cut metal kinda sucks, so this should work a treat.

Used: some random desk lamp, old CPU heatsink from an ancient scrapped PC at work (P2?) - has a nice nickel plated copper base, 5V 900mA power supply from some long dead phone charger, Nichia 119 LED and 45deg optic, 2x AMC7135 350mA current limiters for 700mA total. Should be a couple of hundred lumens give or take, which is quite a lot in a 2ft wide spot.

Power supply just squeezed into the base with the existing weight. Heatsink is screwed to the lamp housing. 7135 chips are hanging around in the air behind the heatsink.





It's not especially pretty, but I really don't give a crap. It's nice'n'bright, won't overheat and cost me about $1.50 

 I'll get a picture of it in use next time I'm out in the garage at night - the one I took this afternoon doesn't do it justice.

Couple more light bars to build (just have to wire up one with LEDs, whenever they arrive) then I'm done for lighting projects for a while. Plenty of other things that need doing, but at least I'll be able to see them easily!


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## bvd1940 (Jan 13, 2015)

mattthemuppet said:


> I can't finish my light bar until the next batch of LEDs arrives from China, so I figured I'd make this work light for my little bandsaw in the room next to my garage. The light in there is dismal and wearing a headlamp to cut metal kinda sucks, so this should work a treat.
> 
> Used: some random desk lamp, old CPU heatsink from an ancient scrapped PC at work (P2?) - has a nice nickel plated copper base, 5V 900mA power supply from some long dead phone charger, Nichia 119 LED and 45deg optic, 2x AMC7135 350mA current limiters for 700mA total. Should be a couple of hundred lumens give or take, which is quite a lot in a 2ft wide spot.
> 
> ...



FYI I just saw two tube led shop lights for $39 ea ifin you are interested, life expectancy 24 years!!:thumbzup3:
Nice job on your build.)


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jan 13, 2015)

thanks Bill!

For the LED tube lights, perhaps when I get a permanent place. Then again, I just like making stuff and I'm as cheap as a duck's behind, so probably not  The light bar will be neat when it's done - 1in.sq. alu tube with cutouts and the LEDs and optics mounted inside. Overall length is 44 inches with 4 LEDs spaced a foot apart.


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## mattthemuppet2 (Feb 9, 2015)

finally finished up another light bar last night





installed - now I can work on my bike and read the speed chart on my drill press without using a head torch!



trying to decide if I want to put optics in there or not - as it is it produces a nice even light, but some of it is wasted on the walls of the tube and it's a little "glarey".

I'll see what the next one on the other side of the shop looks like when I get to it.

Got to say though, it was pretty neat how much my eyes had to adjust going from the garage out into the garden


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## Ulma Doctor (Feb 9, 2015)

Great Projects Matt!!!
:thumbsup2:

thanks for giving me even more ideas!!!!


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## mattthemuppet2 (Feb 9, 2015)

you're welcome Mike! You can never have too many ideas nor too much light


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## mattthemuppet2 (Feb 22, 2015)

last one done for the main garage/ work area, might get round to making a couple for the other room at some point. These ones were made out of some spare 80-20 sections, with the pocket for the driver milled out of the side and strain relief provided by screws threaded into the ends gripping the wires. I cut up a spare extension lead and spliced the other end onto another light, so that all the lights are driven off the light socket and switch. It's about the same amount of power as the 20W CFL they've replaced and many times the light!


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