LED Mill Light

I have seen a number of articles where enterprising mill owners have fitted LED lighting to improve workspace visibility. Often these utilise LED ring lights that are intended for automotive use and a smaller number using flat panels also used as replacements inside vehicles. I couldn′t find a suitable ring light but came across some very cheap LED flat panel lights on Amazon. I ordered a few to play with and at £1.25 each including postage from Hong Kong it wouldn′t be much of a loss even if I couldn′t make something useful.

I used bits and pieces that I had in the workshop to make a suitable cover and frame to protect the panel but you could probably just cover it in clear tape to provide a bit of protection. The panels come with a foam sticky pad on the back so they can be fixed to any flat surface. Unfortunately there is no such surface on the mill where I wanted to put the light, just a large recess on the underside of the head. I made the panel to be a tight fit into this recess. A small piece of 6mm clear polycarbonate sheet made the front cover with a similarly sized bit of styrene sheet for the back. The frame was from some left over plastic soffit trim but any U shaped plastic moulding would do

The panels come with a selection of “ends” to suit various vehicle lamp styles, these were not needed as I soldered the power lead directly to the board. Just to really confuse me the original red wire was the negative and the black positive, fortunately the boards seem to have a degree of protection built in! The parts are simply the black styrene back the clear polycarbonate front (it still has the protective paper on in the photo) some spacers also from polycarbonate and the frame. I cut the frame just using a tenon saw and a mitre box so they don′t join up too well. Basically just stick the spacers round the edge of the back sheet leaving a gap for the wire, stick the LED panel in the middle. The frame just clips on and holds everything together. Drill a hole in the edge of one of the frame pieces and thread the power lead through it before soldering the supply to the board.

With a bit of adjustment to the width of the light it was a tight fit in the recess under the mill head and at the moment it is just wedged in. It may need some better fixing method if the vibration works it loose. The power is from a 12v plug in supply (Wall Wart) it needs to be DC so I couldn′t use the existing 12v light supply. As can be seen it gives quite a bright light, it is supposed to be warm white but it′s definitely on the blue side.