Introduction: Altoids LED Head Lamp

By
About: ..

I needed a hands free light to see where i was soldering but added a bonus Red Super Bright LED. i would recommend to not wear this for looks just for working with your stuff and seeing when the power goes out.

Step 1: Grab Your Stuff

Go Grab your stuff:

I like energy drinks so im gonna drink a Full Throttle Blue Demon their pretty good.
LED's what ever colors you'd like but for this i will use a red and white one my 3rd one burnt out
Tape, i used duct tape, and electrical tape
a few LED holders
Altoids Can i lined mine with Duct Tape
solder
Soldering Iron reccomended but you can just splice the wires if you get a new one i reccomend a 35 watt or a 30 watt
330 ohm 1/4 watt resistors
100 ohm 1/2 watt resistors
Twist Ties or Zip Ties
9V Battery i dont have a picture but im pretty sure you know what im talking about
epoxy
male and Female RCA jacks
drill
2 drill bits about the size of the LED's and RCA jack

Step 2: Drill Some Holes

okay go measure your LED's, I'm using 5mm, and get a drill bit About that size because the LED holders need to be Snug. i was going to put three LED's in the altoids can but i decided to mess with one of the LED's and wonder if i could run 9v through a 3v LED without a resistor. yeah. didn't work. anyway go grab your drill and drill three holes in the top and one on the side, the pictures will explain more on where to drill. if you line yours with duct tape after you drilled just take a switch blade or a utility knife and cut a plus sign. The RCA jack isn't required but i didn't have a switch and i have about a billion of these from that grab bag, when your drilling i put mine in a vice and took off the lid so it wouldnt shake and go everywhere, plus it gives you more room

Step 3: My Bird Rocky Helped

the RCA jack is just power to the 9v but is not required. Okay, hopefully the LED holders fit in your altoids can but put those in the holes you drilled and make sure the LED's fit then pry back the sides on the holders and take out the LED's but don't hook em up yet. go grab some wires make sure you know which lead is positive and negative on the LED's, where i live the longer one is the positive and the shorter is the negative, then wrap the wires around the leads and solder them together and make sure they don't come off with a small tug. then use the electrical tape and wrap each lead but not all the way, leave some of the leads of the LED at the top showing. For my Red LED i needed a 330 ohm resistor for my white one i needed a 100 ohm cause i wanted maximum brightness from the 9v but if you use 2 white LED's then i would connect them in parallel and the red as a single, the red LED I'm using is a super bright one so i only need one but i burned out one of my LED's so im only using 2 but if you do connect the white ones in parallel you will need 2 resistors. then add a switch with 3 leads between the three positive wires.

Step 4: Mhm

okay i used plumbers tape wrapped in duct tape except for 2 holes at the ends (the picture describes it more) then stick one of the ends inside one of the holes on the back then out the other. take a zip tie or a twist tie and you can stick it in the holes to keep it tight to your head..USE TAPE, it will cut your head if you dont. oh yeah, size the plumbers tape before you cut it.

Step 5: You're Done

i hope you enjoyed my instructable, if you need more pictures let me know, i used a Sony 10.2 megapixel D-SLR X100 Camera, sorry i cant get pictures with the head strap on and through the altoids can. When the light is on they are not both on at the same time.