I am looking for a battery powered flood light that can illuminate 360 degrees, and ideally be mounted underneath a 360 camera (such as the RICOH Theta or Insta360). Has anyone made one? If not, how hard would it be to design and build?
Welcome Rollo. Will your camera be mounted on a tripod or selfie stick?
Hi,
On a tripod, so we can do slower exposures and get the best quality images.
We trialled some 12v led floodlights clamped on, which worked ok, but we had light and dark spots. The challenge was space and weight with so many seperate units bolted on, so the idea is to have it all in one unit giving nice even coverage
Welcome to the forum! Good to have you here.
How big a space are you looking to light up? Assume this is warehouse or underground or something? You’ll want lots of light, in all directions, which is a niche requirement but probably not impossible.
It’s “Old-school” technology, but how about xenon flash(es)? Capable of more instantaneous lumens than led technology.
Yeah, ideally 10m radius to light up. Its actually outdoors we have the biggest challenge as theres not much to reflect the light back. In tunnels etc the walls bounce the light about and we decent results.
The kit we use doesnt have a flash trigger , but yes in theory we only need the light on for the exposure time. Usually using HDR, which takes a beat longer for the full exposure.
I had in mind a ring of good output led running off a single 12v battery. Possibly a machined aluminium ring to double up as a heat sink. Battery doesnt need to be huge as we would only put lights on for the photo, maybe 5 seconds total
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Not a bad idea. Custom machining is expensive though.
Cheap option would be to pick up some cheap LED work lights and bolt them to a circle (or square, or whatever) of aluminium. Wire them up to a power tool battery (search on AliExpress or eBay for power wheels battery adapter Makita, or whatever other battery you want to use).
The rubber lockblok (lockblock?) Bicycle handlebar mounts might work well for mounting a number of floody tube lights to your tripod. You want a super floody light beam to minimise hot spots, some niche lights come without reflector or optic, known as a “mule”. There’s a recent thread here, you might find something that works when 3/4 are used together in different directions. You’ll know what CCT you want to use, be aware some of us here are strange and like 2000K led lights 
You’re going to love it here, surveyor!
we bodged this together a while back and ran it off an 18v drill battery, but it was quite bulky and had hot spots. More lights would have been better, but really looking for an overall better engineered solution as it gets quite a bit of use by a range of people. The actual volume of light was probably enough, it was more the spread and quality that wasnt great.
Ill take a look at the mule thread, that may be an interesting option
Thanks
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Yeh, looking at your set up I’m not surprised at the “hot spots and dark spots”. You basically want the same thing without all those reflectors… and split your light into 8 direction mules instead of 4 reflector/focussed
I was thinking you need a full sphere of light but 360° is easier to work with
we do want light directly above in tunnels, but usually the reflections do enough. There is a blind spot close up to the camera, so in theory we could mount something directly above and not be in the picture, but thats when the project grows arms and legs…!
Without knowing your budget or other requirements… what about a series of mules (as mentioned by gravelmonkey) around in a circle… say 6 to 8 of them…? They are individual lights so would require 10~20 seconds to turn them all on…
For a commercial product: Bushman HALO 360 LIGHT
62mm diameter, 1/4" female thread on bottom, 1/4" male thread on top, 750lm output and 2700-5300K CCT adjustment range. Price: €267.
For comparison, Sofirn LT1S (or Pro) has 68mm diameter, 500/330lm output and similarish adjustment range, but no 1/4" attachments (solvable with DIY solution). Current price: ~€40-50 (plus 20% off with code)
There’s also Sofirn BLF LT1 with 68lm diameter, 800lm, 2700-5000K, 1/4" female threads on bottom and side. Current price: 57€ (plus 20% off with code).
And for small diameter, the SC03 migth work. 500lm output, but no adjustable CCT nor 1/4" threads. Current price €28 (plus 20% off with code)
LT1S: https://www.sofirnlight.com/collections/lanterns/products/sofirn-lt1s-500-lumen-with-red-light-and-white-light
LT1S Pro: Sofirn LT1S Pro Camping Lantern with Warm White Light, Cool White Light, and Red Light, Powerbank Output
BLF LT1: Sofirn BLF LT1 Anduril 2.0 Rechargeable Lantern
SC03: Sofirn SC03 Powerful 2-in-1 Flashlight
Why not go old-school? Slap a cartridge-type halogen bulb in a socket. 12V, at 35W, 50W, up to 100W or more. Run it off a car/MC battery.
100% CRi. Near spherical output. Incredibly uniform across the whole sphere (minus what’s blocked by the pins, socket, etc.).
35W is about 3A from a 12V battery at something like 500 lemons, so you can size it accordingly, as you didn’t mention how long you want it turned on.
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tue, it does not need to be LED. The lights will be on for maybe 10 seconds a shot, so we dont need huge battery capacity. I am aiming for around 3000 lumens to give enough throw outdoors.
The ultimate setup would be from this company, but wow he price. I guess I am trying to build this but for less than £250 all in:
K, so stick 10 of 'em in a ring with a shiny cylinder just inside the ring to reflect the light outward. 350W, ~30A, should get at least 2hrs of constant runtime with a typical car battery, so that’s a LOT of shots at 10sec a pop.
Scale down to a MC battery or so and still have plenty of juice. Easy to float-charge with a 5buk “battery tender”.
You can get those halogens in 10pax for cheap, sockets similarly.
Or just get a high-power halogen like a 90W or 130W that’ll put out 2000-3000 lemons, depending. Maybe 2 if 1 would be insufficient. Can have it sticking up on top of the camera as to not have the tripod, etc., block any light. Less wiring that way.
Go crazy…
You could use an Acebeam E75 with Convoy M1 diffuser. The E75 has the best sustained output in its size category.
There is a photo of me using the E75 with the (not as good at diffusing) traffic wand in my review. https://www.stephenknightphotography.com/post/flashlight-review-acebeam-e75-5000k-90cri
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Emisar d18 on an acrylic tube of the same diameter and roughly the same length. Mirror on the opposite end and sand the outside of the tube.
A little wasteful of lumens but it will provide even 360 lighting and plenty of lumens. Essentially TIR but by sanding the outside you break the internal reflection on the sides.
A smaller light like an emisar d4 on a longer tube might work as well. I would be concerned it wont have enough power however, 360 lighting takes a lot of power to project any distance
To inexpensively improve what you’ve already got, you could apply some DC-FIX to diffuse the light and get rid of the hotspots. Add another module which aims straight up. Add more modules if needed to achieve adequate coverage.
Designing and building anything is non-trivial, but considering you’ve already managed to make a nearly adequate solution, you are more capable than most in this regard. Making something smaller, lighter, and more refined will require more careful planning and component selection.
To fabricate a unit like the “meandre-technologie” one, purchase extruded or forged heatsinks. Mount an LED and optic to each heatsink. Make brackets to mount those heatsinks to a base plate. Select an adequate LED driver. Those are the basic ingredients. Extensive knowledge of available lighting components makes designing such a thing much less daunting, as does already having the requisite design and fabrication skills, and access to the required fabrication equipment.
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