LED Ring Light for Laptop Screen

Being a teacher in a mostly unvaccinated country, all of my classes for the past year and a half have been held online. This made me try all different things to improve lesson quality. One of the most simple things that did just that was using better lighting.

I have been using natural light all throughout my classes until recently, as I rearranged furniture in my small home office. These made my natural light setup unavailable, and I had thought of using a commercial ring light. However, the problem of where to place it was an issue, as my home office had limited space. In order to maximize my space, I decided to try installing LED strips onto the screen bezel on my laptop.

This Instructable contains a simple proof-of-concept build, and the actual build that will be used. The final part contains a few suggestions that I could not yet try out myself.

With all that out of the way, let's get started!

Here is a list of parts that can be purchased for this build. Images are attached, and descriptions are placed.

• Aluminum LED Profiles
• LED strips, CRI of at least 90.
• 12 V power Supply
• Soldering iron and solder
• Thin wires
• PWM controller module for LEDs/motors

Furthermore, the build is kept together by the profile caps, which are 3D printed.

• 3D printed profile caps (https://www.tinkercad.com/things/djm0sT9p7vj-caps-for-monitor-led-ringlight)

This section details the main idea of the build. If you'd like to skip this section and go to the full build, you may do so.

In order to see if the idea is actually feasible, a bare-bones build was constructed. This was made out of LED strips, wire, and the PWM controller. Here are the steps for this basic build.

1. The PWM controller and the 12V power supply are connected. In this case, the power supply is attached with wires into the "power in" terminal block of the PWM controller.
2. The LED strips were cut to the lengths closest to the lengths of the sides of the bezel. The LED strips for the top of the bezel were cut so that the camera and microphone are uncovered. (See images)
3. The strips are connected together with short pieces of paired copper wires. The lower strip had a long piece of paired wire that goes into the "power out" terminal block of the PWM controller.
4. The strips are then placed on the bezel. The adhesive on the strips was only partially exposed on each end, so that they can be reused if the concept works. This also allows the strips to expand when they get hot during testing.
5. The power wires of the LED strips are then placed in the PWM controller.
6. Everything is connected, so it's time to test! Watch the video for the results of the test.

The final result: It works! However, the maximum brightness of the LED strips can be too much for a user's eyes. This is something that the full build will have to consider. So let's go to the next section!

Now that the idea is shown to work, let's make the full version.

1. Use the LED strips from the earlier test to cut the aluminum profiles to size. The profiles should be exactly the same length as the strips. Cut 5 pieces, one for each strip.
2. Cut off a very narrow section of the strips, as shown in the image attached. This is because the combined width of the strips is wider than the space inside the profile. Cutting off the sides should result in the two strips fitting inside.
3. Take off the plastic diffuser from the profile, and stick the strips inside. Ensure correct alignment in order to connect strips easily.

4. Check out the pictures of each step. The final testing and case printing for the PWM controller are placed in the next section.

1. 3D-print end caps. Four pieces will be used for the corners, and one will be used for the top two profiles in order to provide space for the camera and microphone.
2. Once all the strips are in their respective profiles, solder connecting wires into the two ends of the longest strip.
3. Make a solder bridge on one of the negative pad pairs of the two strips. Similarly, make a wire bridge on one of the positive pad pairs.
4. Attach the corner end cap to the profile. The end caps have holes for the wires to go through; insert the wire that will connect to the next profile through it. One wire should be left loose to connect to the PWM controller.
5. Solder the loose end of the wire in (4) to the correct terminals of the next profile.
6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 with the remaining profiles.
7. Attach the long wires to the PWM controller.

It should go without saying, but test on every step you make! It will be annoying to go back and troubleshoot the first steps when you're actually done.

As usual, photos are attached to detail each step further. Check them out!

I purposely did not take photos and video of the whole construction process in order to keep the results here a "surprise". However, each profile being connected was tested, until the whole thing was done. The build is a success!

For the PWM controller, an enclosure was made to make handling it easier and safer.

Look at the photos and watch the video to see the results of the ring light!

I did notice the following small issues.

1. The ring light is not secured to the screen, so if I tilt the screen, the light could topple. This will be improved with some mounting solution like hooks or adhesive.
2. The profile slots on the camera endcap are too short, so the connection is a little bit loose. This makes it sag down so its upper section is sometimes visible on the camera. This will be replaced with another endcap that has longer and tighter slots

Here are a few improvements I could think of:

1. The strips are rated at 12 V, which takes USB power out of the picture. However, it may be possible to use USB-C with power delivery, set to 12 V.

I hope you find this useful!