LED Light Box

This light up led box turned out pretty good. It was pretty easy to make and was low cost as well. The basic concept of this project is using a 9 volt battery to power led lights and a white plastic to make cool lighter. You can use water ever color leds you want. There is a switch on it for easy turning on and off.

order leds now and they be there in no time

Tools:

saw to cut hole out

wire strippers

electrical tape

solder

solder iron

sand paper

Supplies:

wood crafting box

9 volt battery

bread board

leds

resistors

switch

wire

I say cut shape in box instead of square because if you want you can cut any shape into that you want. They also sell other shaped boxes you could make this with. For this project I measured in 1/2 inch from the edges of the top of the box all they way around. Then in two of the corners I used a drill bit to cut holes on the inside of the marks I made bigger enough so I could get a serated knife blade in it to start making the cuts along the 1/2 inch line you measured. You could use a jig saw I found a knife was just as easy. Once you cut all for edges you should end up with a square cut out of the center. I sanded the edges to clean it up a bit.

Connecting the led's in this project is pretty easy.

It requires 6 led's for it. I sanded my led's so that the light is dispersed evenly. I have these soldered into a project bread board. To do this i have a 120 resistor hooked in series with three leds in a row. Then i have another row of three led's connected to another 120 ohm resistor connected to 3 led's in series. The other two ends of the resistor are connected together. From that connection they run to red power wire going to the switch. From the other post on the switch is the red power wire that goes to the + on the battery cord. At the end of the led's in series will have the two ends of the rows of leds together connected to the ground. I bought a cord that has a black and red wire that connect to a 9 volt battery.

Before adding the plastic you need to find the right plastic and know how to cut it. The type of plastic is acrylic white plastic. You can find this at your local hardware store. You will probably have to by a bigger sized sheet of this. This is probably the most expensive part of the project but I made a few of theses so it lowered the cost. I cut mine so it fit inside the lid being able shut and that also it covers the whole hole you cut out. To cut this plastic you are going to need a special arcylic plastic cutting tool. I highly reccommend getting one of these tools. I tried with out and broke my plastic. Then simply glue the plastic around the edges and hold it down with something upside down till the glue dries.