Steampunk Goggle Lights

Intro: Steampunk Goggle Lights

The kind you can wear and see through no problem.

STEP 1: The Supplies

The supplies you will need for this project are:

1. Black craft foam (or whatever color you want)
2. Dry erase marker, whatever color
3. Steampunk goggles of your choosing
4. 50mm Angel eye led lights (bought off eBay for cheap and they have many colors)
5. Sandpaper (220 or lower grit)
6. 9v battery
7. Solder
8. Solder coil
9. Hot glue gun

STEP 2: The Lights

I bought 50mm lights for the simple fact that they are the same diameter as the lens from the goggles.

STEP 3: Remove the Lens From the Goggles

My goggles unscrewed to let go of the lenses, your goggles may differ. If they don't unscrew then try to find a way to pop the lens out without breaking them or the goggles.

STEP 4: Tracing the Lights

Lay the lights on top of the glass and trace the inner diameter with the dry erase marker onto the glass. The dry erase is used just so the marker won't be permanent.

STEP 5: Sanding the Lens

The reason for sanding is to diffuse the light of the LEDs. It does help some. You can still see the individual lights, but it does make the white ring that is sanded glow. I sanded both sides.

Get out the elbow grease and press hard on the glass with the sand paper. It made my thumbs sore so you may choose to use an electric glass sander or acid etching technique. Sand from the outside of the lens down to the dry erase line previously traced.

STEP 6: Midway and All the Way Sanded

The second photo is my finished product. Came out quite nice.

STEP 7: Getting the Lens and Lights Installed

Take the lens and place it back in the eye piece of the goggles. Then take the LEDs and put them up against the lens. I put a couple dabs of hot glue to hold it to the lens and eye piece. The solder was used here to adjust the positive and negative wires that were attached to the LEDs so that they stood strait up as seen in picture two. This is so while the lens is screwed in, the wires will not break or catch on the walls of the goggles.

(The soldering may not be a necessary step depending on the lights or goggles you have.)

STEP 8: Getting the Wires in Place

Hot glue the wires to the inside of the eye piece so they wouldn't be in the field of vision. I had vents on the sides of the goggles to pull them through and hot glued them in place.

(If you do not have vents, drill a hole hole or skipping this entirely and have the wires just come out of the goggle from the inside.)

STEP 9: A Test Run

I touched the red and black wires onto the 9v just to test them and noticed a lot of bounce back of light. Wearing them made it hard to see anything but green light so the next steps is how I fixed that problem.

STEP 10: Measuring a Light Blocker

I took a spare lens and measures the outside diameter into a piece of crafting foam. Cut out with scissors and guess on the inner diameter that is cut out to fit your view. It needs to be bold so that it can cover the lights but thin enough to see. This sized worked great for me.

(Also doesn't need to be exact)

STEP 11:

STEP 12: Placing the Foam and Testing

Shove the foam down into the goggle where it covers the lights then hot glued the foam to the goggle wall. The second picture has one placed and one not so you can see the difference it makes to have this. It helped vision immensely.

(Perfection isn't key, just whatever works for you)

STEP 13: Finished Product

The lights are bright and do not obscure my vision. I can see everything and the lights are awesome. The ambience of the sanded ring works great also to give it that "glow."

Comments

[JustAGhost]

My understanding of the Angel Eyes LEDs are that they are 12v and designed for headlights....Now I know zero about electronics.... how can you run something 12volts on a 9volt battery?

[wmusser]

I tried to dig around on these lights to figure out your answer but I couldn't come up with the amps per hour they need at a minimum to work. I can say that I had them on for probably over 5 hours and they were still going strong. They may not be at the brightness they could be with a bigger power source but they were darn bright. Sorry I couldn't explain it further for you. Now I am scratching my head questioning myself. Haha. Thank you so much for commenting!!

[JustAGhost]

Thanks for trying! I asked a friend who was in the military and his explination was basically... that LED'S require a "power source" and a "connection" to work. That even though its meant for 12v it will work with any power source the light will just not last as long or be as bright I do very much appreciate your efforts though and if 9volt lasts that long its all i need! I ordered amber lights for mine and I have a woman etching me a cross hair onto a replacement lens for the right side lens as well I will post pictures when its done right now everything is just on order.

[mbernal99]

Question where do you mount the 9V battery? and could you use smaller batteries..so hide the batteries easier?

[mbernal99]

going to help my friend make a Mr. Freeze costume.

[wmusser]

I would love to see Mr. Freeze once it's done; you'll have to post an instructable or add an image to this conversation! Anyway, I made the wiring extra long and just put it in my pocket. I didn't have a 9v adapter so I just strait Hot Glued the wires to the battery + & -. In addition to that I attached a switch to it so I could save the battery. Here is the picture of it.

[mbernal99]

Yeah I made my wires long too and put a switch to it.

[DragonFireWolf]

do you could acid etch the glass instead of sanding it?

[wmusser]

I did look up some acid etching on the site and it seems like it work work well. Would make great light diffusion, but do it to both sides to break up the light even more.

[MsSweetSatisfaction]

ooooo pretty, they turned out really awesome, and it's even better if you can see through them. Thanks for sharing!