Led Light panel kit for photography

I have been drooling after some nice led panels for a while now, but just can't justify spending a fortune to buy them. 
These LED panel give a nice soft light source for photography, saves electricity, robust and won't heat much.
I am not a professional photographer, just enthusiast that sometimes has professional justify to build silly stuff like this.

I decide to do two big ones and one smaller that i would add battery later for outside shooting.

Step 1: Planning and ingredients

My coal was to keep budget under 100 pounds for 3 led panels. Some how a 12v strip light felt like the best way to start. Also 12v meant that its easy to find power for. car batteries, power supplies and so on.  How much light I would want? Well let see 5 amp feels like maximum amount of power I want to draw and 5M 300-SMD 5730 LED strip rope light white looked like a good model. (although later found it to be too cool near 9900k) there is a warmer version also. 5730 LED where 0.5 watt each and strip light was split in group of 3 LED's, so these can be cut between these groups.  That was a good start for some calculations this site came handy.

http://ledcalculator.net/

So now I know that my bigger panels would take 99 leds and smaller would have 81 and you can left only 36 on by switch, if you want to increase battery life.

So where to house them. First looked into buying some aluminium briefcases for it, but then remembered that I had previously bought some aluminium school cooking containers from 70s for possible iPad and laptop bag, but now that project would wait and these cases would get a new purpose. I think these where perfect for the task. bigger panels where built on one container lid as one panl and botom

I wanted to able to dim this led although I know that it might be a possible problem and introduce flickering specially in low power, but then I decided that I will be mostly run them full power and I just went a head with a simple premade led dimmer.
Some switches i tried to find ones with bit of a retro style.
I think aesthetics are important I can find myself enjoy something I have built more if it also looks good.

List of parts

3x Led dimmer 12/24 volt 8 amp  
price of one 9£ 

3x power supply 5 amp
price of one 5£

Led strip
5M 300-SMD 5730 LED strip rope light white
40£

3x power switch
price of one 2£

3x power plug
price of one 2£

aluminium tape

some electric wire

total 94£

additional stuff

plexiglass
20£

mounts
14£

3x photography light stand
price of one 9£

Comments

[isashach]

Great project! I wanted to do something like this for a while but I couldn't quite figure out which batteries to use and stuff. I would recommend that you wouldn't buy your LED strips for 40 £ a roll, when you can get them for 3-4$ a meter...
Also, have you tried using 1 watt LEDs? They're very efficient, and I'm quite sure they would work much better, and your final product would be much smaller ;)

[maxwelltub]

where do you get your led strips by the meter?

[isashach]

I get them directly from a factory in China, however eBay has some OK prices too. However it is much more cost efective if you buy them in 5 meter rolls.

[maxwelltub]

Could you supply a link

[isashach]

alibaba.com ;)

[nickvkn]

What are those metal panels called or where can I buy some?

[mkuha]

sorry i don't know what they are called. I found them from junk store. I only know that they where used for cooking at schools in 70's. searching aluminium cooking container i have managed find similar containers few times, but not much info about them.

[Dream Dragon]

I just know them as "Baking Trays", nothing special or complicated. I used Foil backed with cardboard for a similar project once.

Nice work.

[DonaldCollis]

Instead of the servo why didn't you use just a run of the potentiometer

[kmurray24]

I think adding some mirroring on the panel would make it all the brighter?>!

[mkuha]

Yes first i was thinking of adding that aluminium tape also to containers bottom, but i felt that the bounce back light is not that massive and the material is fairly reflective already. Panels are really bright and easily enough for my lighting needs. Also being aluminium you could actually bit of work right tools polish it to close mirror finish, if you want to see the trouble :)

[sensoryhouse]

This project is very similar. Check the links for super cheep components. Going to make a couple at some point.

[mkuha]

that's cool to see that other people have took a similar approach. I was wondered why i haven't seen more something like this, one of the things that inspired me to do this.

[WhateverForever]

What a fantastic project. It's clear that you where successful meeting your coal. Congrats...

[sensoryhouse]

lol @ coal

[mkuha]

thank you! very nice of you.

[tigerbomb8]

you could go to a hobby store get some li-po batterys and a voltage regulator and make a battery pack for when you are out and about

[mkuha]

yep i like that idea also, battery back was in plans already from beginning. I left some room for that in the smallest panel, so i can place it in. Haven't got around to do that yet. Big panels if needed can be run from external battery.

[tigerbomb8]

did you enter this in to the make it glow contest

[mkuha]

now i did ;) thank you!

[mikeasaurus]

I like the addition of the plexiglass diffuser, have you thought about other types of material as light filters?

[mkuha]

Thank you! yeah i have thought few other options also. I think i will end up adding some kind of mount so i can use thin light and diffuser gels that come in rolls. maybe magnetic mount, but that's still in thinking phase :)

[tigerbomb8]

i started making schematics for panel that used RGB leds

[mkuha]

Great! I am very interested, keep me posted on progress.