How To Make A DIY Super-Bright Portable LED Light

Today we are going to share with you a video from one of our favorite Youtube channels which usually has nothing to do with photography (but if you are into DIY and woodworking it is super fun to watch). In this case however – Lin, the Creator of the channel which is called Darbin Orvar decided to try and create a small, yet powerful LED, with some pretty nice results.

If you are into woodworking and watch some videos on Youtube from time to time there is a good chance that you already watched a video or two by the blond girl with the strange accent (yes, she is from Sweden) who seem to be able to build almost anything. This time around we are not going to talk about woodworking (this is LensVid after all) but actually about lighting and in particular mini DIY LED lighting.

Now of course, these days you can buy a very decent portable LED like the (really cool) Lume Cube that we reviewed here recently for under a $100. However, if you are the sort of person who just want to build something of your own, than Lin will show you how you can do it yourself.

Lin’s first step was cutting some see-through Polycarbonate using her table saw (you can probably do it with some other types of saws as well (even a utility knife should work). She used 3 pieces and sended the corners so they will not be sharp.

She drilled holes in the corners and for the wires. No she initially tried using 2 sets of 4AA batteries but this made the whole thing a bit heavy (although to be honest if you are really looking to use this for video – this is probably your best bet). Instead she used coin size batteries (she used 4) and soldered to a number of strips of LED lights. Lin also added a small switch and attached the 4 batteries with hot glue.

Finally she added a mount she created (you can just buy one) and assembled everything with spacers and that is about it. It seems to work O.K. but as we noted battery life for video isn’t going to be long with those cell type batteries (it was actually more than 2 hours).

At the end of the video Lin gives some ideas on how you can improve this build which some of you might appreciate including different types of batteries and designs.

If you are into DIY you can also check out many more interesting DIY photography projects here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.