LED Light Panel

This LED pannel will cost around $45 ($30 withiut power supply) and 3 hours to make.

2x5m LED strip 5050 cool white 12v (ebay - ~$20)

female 3.5mm power jack ( ~$1)

Connector for single color 5050 LED ( ebay - ~$4)

90mm wide metal stud channel (home depot - ~$5)

10amp 12v power supply (ebay - ~$15

Cut about 110cm from the 90mm wide metal stud channel. Drill a hole the size of the power jack at one end of it and clean it with sand paper or rotary tool. Install the power jack.

Cut the LED strip into 1 meter pieces. The metal stud channel is 90mm wide so it only allows for 9 LED pieces to be installed.

I had to cut the sides of the connectors as they are wider than the strip. Although they are supposed to work without soldering, I recommend a touch of soldering to make the connections more solid.

Attach and solder the connectors to one end of each of the 9 strips. Pay attention to the polarity of the strip, and make sure to always solder the red wire to the plus side.

Carefully attach all the 9 strips inside the 90mm metal stud channel by takiing off the 3m tape backing off them. Make sure all the ends with connectors are on the same side as the 3.5mm power jack.

Connect all the red wires to the middle socket of the powerjack, and all the black wires to the side socket. Use solder to make the connections permanent and solid.

Cover the connections with electrical tape.

I recommend using a 12v-10a power supply. This light only uses around 6-7amps but for safty reasons it is better to use a power supply that is capable of providing more power.

Ther are 540 LED lights in this setup, each is supposed to produce 15-20 lumens. In my experience, this setup used 6.3amps at 11.5 volts. The would be ~70watts. Based on my research, LEDs are supposed to produce around 90 lumens per watt, so this setup will produce over 6000 lumens.