What do you do with a leftover LED-strip, well you turn it into good looking little cabinet lights. That's what I did and I'd like to show you how you can build your own small led panels for many different purposes.

Step 1: The Materials

To make a few panels you don't need much much experience or skills neither do you need a whole lot of materials. The few things that are required are:

some LED-strip (120 LED's per m)
an empty gummy bear container
some wire
double-sided tape

To power it you will furthermore need

a 12V power supply
a switch

And a few tools:

a soldering ion
a hot glue gun
a wire cutter
a cutting knife

Step 2: Cutting the Plastic

Gummy bear containers have some nice clear plastic that is great to house the LED's. Remove the stickers with some hot water and cut small 3cmX3cm squares out of the even sides of the box. Two for each panel.

Step 3: Soldering the Strips

Now it is time to connect the LED's. Cut the strip into pieces of 3 LED's. Remove the protective film from the back of the pieces and stick 3 of them onto each of your small square pieces so that the plus side of the strip piece in the middle is next to the plus side of the piece next to it and the minus side is next to the negative side of it's neighbour.

Use small pieces of wire to connect the strip pieces in parallel, plus to plus, minus to minus as it can be seen in the picture. Solder the main power wire to the middle strip piece and you are done.

Step 4: Hot Glue the Pieces Together

When you are finished soldering apply some hot glue to the border of your bottom piece of plastic with the LED's on it and put the second piece of plastic on top. Use a knife to remove the excess glue. Apply a piece of double sided tape to the back of the panel and maybe also to the wire and your led Panel is finished.

Step 5: Use the Panels to Light Something Up

Now you have a few small and powerful LED panels that you can use pretty much anywhere, maybe even underwater if you used enough hot glue ;). I attached them to my TV cabinet and drilled small holes through the back plate to fit the wires through. I connected them to an old 12V power supply and you can see stunning result in the photos. I'd like to know what you will do with this idea so post a photo.