LED Bead Jig

Use this jig to make sew-able surface mount LED beads to illuminate your clothing, accessories, etc!!  With this jig you can make 55 LED beads really fast!

I started making my own LED beads a couple of weeks ago but got frustrated using the helping hands to solder very tiny pieces together.  It took me about 45 minutes just to make 10 LED beads!  So I designed this LED bead jig to speed up my rate of production.

The way it works:  There is a rectangular acrylic stand with 5 rows each with 22 tiny holes on the top of the stand.  Toothpick tips will peak out of the holes of the stand and they will be secured by a layer of cork and Styrofoam underneath the acrylic stand.  The tooth picks will be used to keep the LED's in place while they are soldered to the LED.

Step 1: Materials

1. 12"x7.5" piece of acrylic
2. Laser Cutter
3. Heat Gun
4. Metal Straight Edge
5. 2 Clamps
6. Table
7. Oven mitt or hand towel
8. Exacto knife
9. Cork board
10. Styrofoam
11. 1 Sheet of Squishy Stuff**
12. Tooth Picks
13. Dry erase marker
14. Ruler
15. Glue
16. Pins (sewing pins)

**Definition: "squishy stuff you can get to line drawers, or put under carpets to keep them from sliding" -scoochmaroo

Comments

[juliblue]

Hello, I LOVE the idea of DYI surface mount LEDs- did you use a specific metal for the crimping beads? Would brass, copper, silver, or stainless steel crimp beads all be effective since they are fairly conductive materials? I was just wondering if you tried different (crimping bead) metals-since craft stores have many choices- and if you found one worked better than another? Great tutorial by the way! I will have to try this!

[L.L.Cool]

This is the first 'ible that inspired me to comment. Excellent job and great imagination.Please show us much more of your abilities and ideas. I'm particularly interested in how you are going to power some of your creations. Keep us posted!!!

[westfw]

nice idea. PCB material might be a better choice for heat resistance, but it's not so formable. Hmm. Are your beads going the right direction? The LED beads I bought via Etsy had the holes parallel to the emitting surface of the LED, rather than perpendicular as in your photos. I guess either way could be made to work...

[JohannBisschoff]

Wow! I like what I see. How about some other pix of a finished product, also very curious!

[jolshefsky]

It took me most of the instructable to figure out what you were trying to do! Perhaps you should mention that you are trying to solder beads to surface-mount LED's so they can be strung together with conductive thread. :-)

[task41line]

I am going to try this!

[frollard]

What stops the led from moving once placed on the beads? Really neat project! I love jigs!

[Carleyy]

The divider is there to stop it from getting pushed back by the soldering iron which was a problem in one of my original models. You just have to be very careful when soldering. I touch the soldering iron only to the crimp beads because they're secure and feed in the solder very carefully.

[frollard]

Aha..the back-stop is invisible in the picture :D Got it now!

[coilsinamotor]

thats soo cool!

[Skyfinity]

That is a pretty asthetically pleasing jig. I love when people make quality tools like this. You must feel really proud when you use it.

[Carleyy]

Thanks. This was my fourth or fifth version of it. In the beginning it was completely made of out cardboard. Jason suggested I make it with acrylic. I just bought 500 tiny surface mount LEDs and crimp beads so I have lots of projects in store that will use this.

[Culturespy]

Nice job!

[Ghost Wolf]

I want to see something made with those beads! I am very curious what it looks like. 5 stars by the way

[brunoip]

I like it. Very clever.