My 1st DIY Continuous Studio Light

For start, i would like apologies for my English.
I started this thread to share my 1st experience on DIY LED Light.

After reading the idea from marokero , I decided to make one as I won't able to own a proper studio light at the moment.

Marokero design is at this link:-
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/247826

I'm still a beginner/noob when come to both DIY LED & studio light, therefore welcome to put your comments and advise here.

For my DIY LED here, it cost me less than USD$25 and alot of own sweet time to build it. Here are the itemised list:-
1) 2 White 10Watt 700 lumens LED & 1 Warm White 10Watt 600 Lumens LED ~ USD$21 via Ebay
2) 3 x 1 Ohm (2watt) resistors ~ USD$1 via local electronic shop
3) screws for mounting LED and 1/4" bufferly screw for tripod mount & epoxy for the glue the tripod screws. ~ roughly around USD$3 via local hardware shop
4) AMD CPU heatsink and cooling fan ~ (Taken from my broken motherboard)
5) 12VDC adaptor, 3A (36Watt) ~ (Free, given by friend)
For the 33" umbrella and bracket, i brought it from Ebay for less than USD$13.

• The DIY LED is running on 12VDC, therefore it is able to run using 12V car battery or Lead/Pb battery.

• With 3 LEDs running the temperature will increase 33 Deg.C ambient to 51 Deg.C. This is measured using contact temperature sensor. Else if running 1 or 2 LEDs the temperature should be around 44 Deg.C. (Of course this is with the fan running).

• -If you were observing one of the picture in the album, there is a H1 LED bulb mounting at the side of the DIY LED cylinder. That is just an extra light for indication and also for me to focus under dark condition. My E-PL1 cant focus at total darkness. It is also running on 12VDC and attached via RCA adapter to DIY LED.

• -Then there are 3 switches at the back of the DIY LED. 1 main switch to power the 2nd & 3rd switches and also ON the fans for cooling. 2rd switch is for 1x Warm White LED. 3rd is for 2x White LED.

• Each LED are connected in series with 1 Ohm resistor to regulate the current. (You can find the resistor by search for LED calculator on Google.com or http://ledcalculator.net/) The LED spec. is 10-12VDC with forwarding current approx. 1A. Without the resistor it will running 1.67A.Currently each LED is running at around 10.5V at 880mA.

My next project will be looking at own 11.1V battery using 3x3.7V 18650 Li-Ion battery and if possible a charger using the 12VDC adapter I already own. Not sure if anyone here could guide me to a forum related to the DIY battery & charger.

Thanks for viewing. :twothumbs
Muncheno.

You can view the photos here:-
http://forums.dpreview.com/galleries/9831441484/albums/diy-led-light

Hey Muncheno, thanks for the linkup. And you managed to make a nice light for not a lot of money - props for using the AMD heatsink. But aren't the three leds already providing enough light to focus with your E-PL1? Have you thought about spray painting the interior of your reflector with something more reflective, like a high temp silver or chrome spray? The white umbrella will definitely suck up at least 2-stops from your light, so maybe that's where you are running into focusing problems?

I am in the process of building another light myself, perhaps nothing Earth shattering in the power department, but much more adjustable and (hopefully) cooler running. Not going to be cheap though, and it will probably need a few parts machined at a shop too.

marokero:
Thx. Good suggestion on the chrome spray. I will look around in hardware shop to see if they have something with high reflective that I could use.
Hopefully I could found some.

Regarding the focusing problems, the H1 Bulb is to assist me focus when I not using those 3 LEDs. I think might use it when I just want to use my Metz 48 Af-1 flash only.

I will be looking forward for your up coming DIY light. Please keep me inform.

Thanks and regards.