DIY Perks: Unique Lighting Projects with LED Strips

When it comes to lighting up our homes and offices, we often rely on traditional methods such as using incandescent bulbs or fluorescent lights. However, these options can be expensive, energy inefficient, and even harsh on the eyes. In this article, we'll explore three unique but very useful lighting projects that can be made using LED strips.

One of the first projects is a simple yet effective way to diffuse light and reduce glare in rooms. To start, we need some tin foil and bunch it up to make tiny ridges and crevices. The tin foil will help scatter the light in many different directions, making the room look brighter and more even. We'll also need some spray mount glue to attach the foil to a large sheet of cardboard, which will serve as the base for our lighting project. It's essential to keep the rough texture of the foil intact, so we won't press down too hard while applying the glue.

Once the cardboard is covered with tin foil, we can attach two aluminum angles on each side using some nuts and bolts. These angles will provide a sturdy frame for our LED strip lighting. We'll also need some additional lengths of angled aluminum rods with two small holes at each end. These rods will serve as supports for our LED strips, which we can stick down along one side.

To add an extra layer of brightness and light quality to our project, we can use some electrical wire to thread through the holes made in the rods and bars. The wire should be pulled tight to secure it, and then hot glue can be used to hold everything in place. Any excess wire can be trimmed off at the top, but we'll need to leave a length at the bottom to hook up to a power source later.

To prevent the bars from slipping, we can add a little bit of hot glue under each one as well. This will ensure that our LED strip lighting stays in place and provides consistent brightness throughout. Once everything is secure, we can expose the conductor inside the wire by carefully trimming off a bit of insulation, and bridge it to the LED strips using a short piece of wire.

Each of the long supporting wires will have its own polarity, so one can be soldered to all the negative pads on the LED strips, and the other can be soldered to all the positive pads. This will allow us to control the brightness and color temperature of our lighting project. To add some extra flair, we can route the long wires at the bottom of the light to a longer power cord, which can have a power connector added to the other end.

Mounting the LED strip lighting is relatively easy – it's just a case of hooking it onto two nails on the wall. And when powered up, the result is surprisingly striking. The soft and diffused light emitted by this project is incredibly useful for rooms with low natural light, making it an excellent solution for areas that struggle with glare.

In comparison to other lighting projects, such as the wall light project, which uses sanding down many pieces of acetate, this LED strip lighting method requires much less effort for a larger surface area. In fact, the light emitted by this project is shockingly close to that of a window, making it an excellent option for winter months when natural light is scarce.

For those interested in more unique lighting projects, we have two other videos available on our channel. The first one is a guide on how to make a super bright water-cooled LED spotlight, which uses this same technology to create an extremely bright and focused beam of light. This spotlight is perfect for use in studios or workshops where high levels of illumination are required.

If you're looking for more information on the specific LEDs used in our projects, we've linked them to the description below. They offer a range of color temperatures and CRI ratings of 90 or above, which has been verified using a spectrophotometer. By choosing the right LED strips for your project, you can ensure that your lighting is not only bright and efficient but also visually appealing.

Finally, if you're interested in seeing more LED-related videos from us, be sure to check out our next video, where we explore the world of color-changing RGB crystal tower lights. These unique lamps use advanced technology to change colors and create a mesmerizing display of light and sound. With its stunning design and impressive features, this lamp is perfect for anyone looking to add a touch of magic to their home or office.

As always, thank you for watching DIY Perks! If you have any questions or comments about our projects, be sure to leave them in the section below. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more unique and informative DIY tutorials, and we'll catch you next time!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enLED strips.Incredibly useful if you know what you'regoing to do with them.Chances are though you'll buy some and endup just sticking them to a wall or somethingwhich would be a bit boring and that's a shameas you can be really quite creative with whatyou do with them.So in this video we're going to be making3 unique lighting projects using, you guessedit, LED strips.Let's get to it.The first project is particularly awesomelooking, yet is also incredibly useful, andyou'll see why as the design comes together.So the first thing we'll need is a thin sheetof aluminium from which we can cut two longthin lengths.The easiest way to do this is by scoring grovesin the aluminium with a craft knife and thenbending them repeatedly until they break free.Once you've got two of them they can be joinedtogether using a spare piece of aluminiumwith some screws and nuts.With that done we now need to start workingon the wiring for the LED strip lights.As we want to be able to adjust their brightness,we need a little dimmer circuit.This needs to have a power jack soldered toits input terminals, and two loose wires solderedto its output terminals, which will be connectedto the LEDs later.We're now going to set this into cement, soto prevent cement and moisture getting toanything important we can use some blue tackto shield the power socket solder tabs, andthen some electrical tape around the dimmeritself.They can now be mounted inside a little plasticmould of some kind - I used an old businesscard holder.The power socket needs to be securely stuckto the side with some more blue tack so thatit will be accessible later.So now it's time to have some fun as we cannow mix up some cement and gloop it into theplastic mould, making sure it surrounds theelectronics completely.The aluminium strip can also be inserted,and as you can see I added some screws toits end to give it more grip so that it won'tpull out later once the cement as set.To finish it off we plop on a few small pebblesto give it some more interest.The same can be done to the other end of thealuminium, only this time without any electronics.Again, we can add a few pebbles on top forvisual effect.Once the cement has set, we can pull the mouldsoff and as you can see we've got some prettysnazzy looking weighted feet.All we need to do now is pup off the bluetack that we used on the power socket, anduse some superglue to attach some rubber padsto the bottom to give it some grip.As you can see, it's taking shape and is startingto look very special indeed.I left the protective film in place untilthis point simply to prevent fingerprints,as having it fingerprint free will allow theLEDs to stick to it more reliably.I'm using a brand that has good colour quality,and looks like daylight.Now just a quick warning about LED stripsand that's DON'T GET CHEAP ONES.Cheap ones tend to get dimmer over time andhave abysmal colour quality so just spenda little extra and get some decent ones.I've discovered these ones recently and they'repretty good - links in the description, CRIof 90+, so pretty decent for the price.So again, just avoid cheap ones and get somethingthat's a lot better.Once they're fully stuck down they can besoldered to the output wires of the dimmer.I used a multimeter to check the polarity,but if you don't have one just use trial anderror and swap them around if the LEDs don'tlight up.One final touch is to add some finishing oilto the pebbles - this gives them a glossyappearance, as if they're still wet straightfrom the beach.Looking good!So now a 12v power adapter can be connectedto the power socket, and the brightness canbe adjusted using the dimmer.As you can see, it looks incredibly awesome,almost like something out of Star Trek...but, what is it exactly?Well, put simply, it's a work light.As the LED lights surround whatever is underneaththem, they illuminate everything with a softalmost shadow-less light that is easy on theeyes yet provides absolutely fantastic visibility.Pretty useful for homework, tinkering withelectronics, sketching drawings, or even sewing.You get the picture.Excellent visibility from a single power efficientand cool looking device.Keeping with the modern si-fi lighting schemegoing on here, it's time to start on the nextproject.Again, we'll need some aluminium for this...I know, I know, but while I do admittedlylike working with aluminium, there is a practicalreason for using it so much in these projectsbecause it wicks heat away from the LED stripsmounted to it, keeping them cool and increasingtheir lifespan significantly.Just as before, I got my pieces from a largersheet, using the knife and bend techniqueto trim them down to size.Now we need some lengths of angled aluminium,from which we need to cut off two smallerpieces.These need to then have a variety of holesmade through them, which will be for mountingthe aluminium angles to the aluminium sheet,as well as providing space for two power sockets,and an on/off switch.The power sockets can be wired up in parallel,as there are two of them simply for daisychaining multiple lights together if desired,and then the on/off switch can also be addedto the circuit.I'm using a toggle switch for a nice tactilefeel.We can now use some PCB standoff pillars andaccompanying screws to mount them both tothe aluminium sheet - one at the top, andthe other at the bottom.As you can see, I've threaded the power wiresthrough some holes to the front, so we'reagain ready to add the LEDs.We want two short lengths of these, so cutthem down to an appropriate size and solderthem together in parallel.Before mounting them I added some electricaltape underneath at the top and bottom of thealuminium.This shouldn't strictly be necessary, as youmay have observed in the previous project,but it is good practice in order to preventshort circuits with the aluminium.Now technically this could be just pluggedin and the LEDs would light up... but wouldlook pretty boring and having a direct unobstructedview of the LEDs would be very uncomfortableon your eyes, as these strips tend to be veryharsh and glaring to look at.This isn't as much of a problem on the worklight project because the LEDs face downwards,but this time we need to do something aboutit.So, this is where this project's special trickcomes in, for which we'll need two clear a4acetate sheets.These are super cheap, and you can find somelinks to them in the description.Now, we're going to use these to diffuse thelight, and to make them suitable for thispurpose we need to spend a lot of elbow greasesanding them down on both sides to make themsuper frosted.It takes quite a while to get them to thispoint, but it's worth it for such a good finish.We can now fold over the edges of these sheetsand glue them to the aluminium like so, withone closer, and the other further out to makea gap between them.Once dried the light is complete, and it lookssignificantly more interesting now that thediffusion sheets have been added.As there's a hole on the back of each pieceof aluminium angle, they can be hung ontoa wall either vertically, or horizontally.Now for the grand switch on - again usinga 12v power adapter.As you can see, the diffusion sheets do afantastic job at softening the light and makingit much easier on the eyes, while making thewhole thing look quite modern as well.You can even daisy chain more than one together,like I mentioned earlier, to provide illuminationto an entire room.Right, now it's time for the third and finalproject, and this one is very unusual, andshould be extremely practical for home lighting.I'm pretty excited about it.So for this one we'll first need a lengthof aluminium tubing, and after clamping itin a workbench we can use a bolt to threadit for mounting later.Now it can be trimmed down to roughly 11cm,and a hole drilled through the end furthestfrom the thread we just made.After we've got four of these short rods,we can now get a long length of angled aluminiumand drill some holes at each end through whichwe can mount these rods in place.After making two of these, we now need toget some tin foil and bunch it up to maketiny ridges and crevices.I'm using gloves here so that I don't accidentallymake a hole with a fingernail, as it's quitefragile, and to also prevent natural oilsfrom being left behind on the foil as it needsto be glued down in just a moment and, likeI mentioned before, oil can harm adhesion.So now we need to get a large sheet of cardboard,onto which we can use some spray mount glueto attach the foil in place.Try not to press down too hard as it's importantto keep the rough texture that we've giventhe foil, so we want to avoid smoothing itout.Once the whole card has been covered you shouldhave something that looks like this, and thetwo aluminium angles can now be clamped toit on each side using some nuts and bolts.Now we need some more lengths of angled aluminium,and as you can see they need to have two smallholes at each end.Now some LED strips can be stuck down alongone side like so.Again, I'm using some good quality stripsas cheaper ones just aren't worth using.We can now grab some electrical wire, andthread it through the holes we made in therods and also through the holes on the aluminiumbars.Once they are pulled tight, we can use somehot glue to hold it all in place.Any excess can be trimmed off at the top,but we need to leave a length at the bottomto hook them up to a power source later.To prevent the bars from slipping, add a littlebit of hot glue under each as well.Now we can expose the conductor inside thewire by carefully trimming off a bit of theinsulation, and bridge it to the LED stripsusing a short piece of wire.Each of these long supporting wires will haveits own polarity, so one can be soldered toall the negative pads on the LED strips, andthe other can be soldered to all the positivepads.Once that's done, each of the long wires atthe bottom of the light, which we didn't trimdown, can be routed to a longer power cord,which can have a power connector added tothe other end.I added some holes to the sides earlier, somounting it is just a case of hooking it ontotwo nails.So, you'll probably agree that it doesn'tlook particularly amazing or anything whilstit's turned off, but don't let that fool you.It is quite special and solves one of thebiggest problems that plague LED strips, whichis the glare they produce.So, after hooking it up to a powerful powersource - it draws more than the others becausea full 5m length of strips was used - youcan see that it looks actually quite strikingnow, and the light emitted from it is incrediblysoft and diffused, allowing you to comfortablygaze at it directly.This is because the tin foil scatters thelight in many different directions, and asthe surface area is very large it illuminatesthe room very nicely.This method is more effective at softeningthe light than the wall light project, makingit shallower, and also requires much lesseffort for a larger surface area comparedto sanding down many pieces of acetate.In fact, the light emitted by this is shockinglyclose to that of a window, which would bevery useful during the short days of winterif you want to keep that summer vibe.So there we have it.3 Unique but very useful lighting projectsmade out of LED strips.Before I sign off you might be wondering whatthat thing is on the wall and that's the previousproject.It's an RGB (colour changing) crystal towerlight - it's pretty cool and I'll link itdown below if you're interested as it's adecent one.Right so other than that I hope you've enjoyedthis video and if you have don't forget tosubscribe and maybe share this video withyour friends.Other than that, I'm Matt, you've been watchingDIY Perks, and I really hope I see you nexttime.Good bye for now!Don't forget you can find links to the specificLEDs that I used in the description.They're available in different colour temperatures,and all have CRI ratings of 90 or above, whichI verified myself with a spectrophotometer.Also if you'd like to see another LED relatedvideo, then why not check out this one, whichis a guide on how to make a super bright watercooledLED spotlight.I use this in my studio all the time whileI'm filming, so it is again something that'svery useful in the real world.\n"