Drill press LED light

so I recently came into an old but perfectly functioning floor standing drill press and as with my usual LED light obsession, I had to convert the attached light to LED. It also gave me an excuse to use my new to me bandsaw (and to use the lathe to make bearing rests for it!) and try out some different things on the lathe.

First the pill (electronics will come next year). Scrap alu plate of some description (dumpster find)

Rough cut with my bandsaw (bearing rests worked a treat!)

Drilled for an arbor, which I really should have faced first

Circularised, tapered to fit the light housing (ish) and polished for a good thermal interface

After I drilled and tapped all the various holes (using my drill press, woohoo!), I re-mounted the pill to face and polish it flat

Ta-da! For the drive current I'll be running this at, it really wasn't necessary, but I wanted to try facing and this was a good excuse.

LED star mounted to show you what it should look like. I have to reflow the LED onto the star, but that won't take any effort

In the light housing

Other end. The driver will be free-floating in the space between the pill and the switch

First thing to do, reflow the LED I wanted onto its star. I'm using a Nichia 119 LED (from Texaspyro) for this light as it's bright enough, cheap as chips (~$1 each!) and has really high colour reproduction, which is always nice to have. The 119 LEDs have only 2 pads (+ and -) compared with the more normal 3 (+, - and thermal), so the stars need the central thermal pad grinding out otherwise the LED will short. Small dab of solder paste and onto my random piece of alu reflowing plate - this is mainly to stop them falling through the rings and getting scuzzed up with the dried up rice boilings over underneath. It also makes for a nice gradual heating up of the star and LED too.

after

The 119s are the small one, the other is an XM-L2 that I thought I trashed getting a torch apart (1st pic) but turned out to be fine when I reflowed it onto a new star (2nd pic), which I was pretty chuffed about.

LED on heatsink

Wired up to the driver, one I had lying around from an old 12V LED bulb

Switch wired up. One wire from a spare 12V wall wart is screwed to the switch, the other passes through direct to the driver. The wire from the switch isn't wired up yet

Everything installed in the light, with 25deg optic to focus the fairly meager output as efficiently as possible. I measured the current and it's only 170mA, so output is probably ~50lm or so. If this isn't enough, I can always use a 5V wallwart and a couple of 350mA 7135 chips, like I've done in another work light.

Next up is making a new mount for the light. It was previously mounted on a block of wood bolted to the drill press and wired directly to the motor. I thought a more elegant solution would be to incorporate a 2 output socket into the mount, so that I could add another light on the other side in the future. I used some seriously hard mystery wood (my band saw laughed and my jig saw cried), drilled and "milled" out a cavity and various other holes, then painted it green to sort of match the drill press colour

Installed and wired up

light mounted

close up of the light head, which I'm rather pleased with

in action

it isn't super bright, but it's close enough that I don't think it'll matter much. It's certainly better than not having a light! Happy New Year!

Image links need to be tweaked.

just done, it took a while!

I like the look of that, much better re-use something than bin it. Nicely converted.

Another useful blend of old and new stuff, thanks for sharing one of your builds again :-)

Mix of old (50+ Years?) and new tech!

Edit; I know I´m slow,djozz beat me by 8 minutes. :slight_smile:

I like it all!!! But I would steal the switch given the chance!!! Address please!! Surprised

Thanks for sharing. Dan.

Thanks for sharing this! I'm building an electronics workstation now and looked at your workbench light thread quite a bit. I ended up going with a 48" florescent, but I'd love to build an LED shop light sometime.

Nice build. I love those 119s, got my first from FT and then ordered some more from texaspyro as well.

Those 12V DC drivers - all of those cheap drivers has four diodes as rectifiers - no idea why. Seriously, you’re already using DC, those are just waste of energy, about 10% of the 12V go to heating these.

You can squeeze a bit more current too by bypassing those. And you can play around with the sense resistor, should be on the other side of the driver.

Very creative. I like it.

you’re all very kind, thank you! I too like hiding modern technology inside old stuff - looks just as good, works even better. One day I’ll completely strip down and rebuild the drill press as it’s around 50 or 60 years old, but I don’t think it’s had an especially hard life. I’m really digging these 119s too - I now have 3 lights with them in my garage and soon another one (spot light for bandsaw and bench grinder). The colour is just right, they’re cheap as chips and the instant on/ full brightness is a wonder at the moment with the winter temps (7F today, although that’s balmy compared to MN or WI :laughing: as the garage CFL is just useless.

Pulsar - thanks for the tips! I had a feeling that was the case, but I didn’t want to mess with it in case I screwed it up as I only have one of these drivers left. I think it’ll do for now as it’s a bit of a pain to take apart (have to take the pill out first and then unscrew the housing) and there are plenty of other projects to be getting on with.

Next job - make a couple of heatsinks on the lathe with my daughters :slight_smile: That’s progressing along nicely now that I have the right tools!

Matt,

I've actually never used a Nichia before, so I was considering doing the reflow with 119's (cheaper option). Running these at 1 amp, is the heat manageable, or should I run it lower? I'm thinking of getting an aluminum bar and doing triples with optics. There are so few cheap quality indoor lights that it would be fun to build some of my own.

If you want to stock up those 12V drivers - they’re now $3.82 for 10pcs (that’s after coupon MOZAHJOFF for 8% off, valid until 5th January). Really cheap! At the price I really recommend to stock some as they are buck driver/current limiters - one can always find use for them.

http://www.buyincoins.com/item/38664.html

I also use these 92cent driver for mains to 12V output (can power 12V chinese LED straight):
http://www.buyincoins.com/item/27619.html

Dirt cheap, but works quite well. Combine the two drivers with 119 emitter (assuming $1) will let you have 80lumens 92CRI light for $2.30, straight from mains. Budget enough. :slight_smile:

I can run the 119s at 700mA sustained with standard heat management, never see a problem.

IMO, should be ok at 1A if you put some effort on heatsinking.

Very nice, thanks for sharing!

Love to see these 100% custom lights. :slight_smile:

I think the 119s are rated to only 700mA because of the absent thermal pad, but you could always try 1A and see how you get on. I’ve been running one at 700mA for ages without a problem. If you want a spot work light a triple would work a treat, but for larger area lighting, I’d probably go with single LEDs spaced some distance apart. LEDDNA has the 25/45/60 deg optics I’ve used on sale for 40c each (34c with BLF10 if it still works), although order the different ones separately as they mixed up one of my orders (I now have 10 10deg optics!). The 60deg is pretty good for area lighting (prob. around 45-50deg with the smaller die) and the 25/45 are great for spot work lights, depending on how far from the work the light will be. Making a light bar really is about as simple as it gets - if you want super simple, just buy some 1in.sq. alu tubing or even better, U channel from HD or Lowes, cut to lenth, JB weld a couple of pieces together for more area, glue or screw on the LEDs and wire it up.

Pulsar - you’re awesome, thank you so much for the link to that mains driver! I could kiss you! I tried getting another one of the drivers I used in the light bar from FT, but the first one went missing and the second one was supposedly resent but the tracking no. doesn’t work and it hasn’t arrived either. Only $1.80 out, but it’s the wait and run around that’s irritating. I bought a similar one from DX for ~$3 before I saw your BIC one. Bought 3 of those. Hopefully one of them from somewhere will arrive! I have a neat fibre optic lathe light I want to make sometime soon.

thanks Ryan. A lot more effort than just plugging a CFL in there, but a much better outcome!

Very useful project easy and cheap to make. But I have a question….are you a teacher in your life? You have a very good didactic way to explain projects.

Woodworkingbuddy

thanks and yes, college biology professor. Making stuff is a great way to unwind!

good job!!