How To: Easily Add Build Plate Lights

So I've put a lot of thought into the easiest way to add a lighting setup that illuminates the build plate for recording or just monitoring prints in a dimly lit room. I've seen really nice setups where people took 5mm LEDs with matching resistors and created their own custom LED rings to mount around their hotend, but this may be a bit beyond what some are capable of. I found a really nice LED ring on Amazon that has integrated resistors and SMD LEDs, and decided to go with that.

Vitamins - (Make sure to read through the instructions before buying, every setup will differ)
1 x 60mm SMD LED Ring (you may be able to get away with a 40mm ring if you are still running the stock hotend, but even so it will provide a much narrower illumination field than the 60mm one)
~3' x 22awg stranded hookup wire (if you have an E3D installed you can get away with using a couple wire splices to piggyback on the heatsink fan's power supply lines and use the short wires that come attached to the light ring)
- You will also need a small amount of either Sugru or hot glue to attach the ring mount to the X axis carriage.

Optional - (Better way of doing it)
1 x Small piece of perfboard (sometimes called protoboard)
~4 x Screw terminals (make sure to get 2.54mm pitch as they will fit into perfboard holes perfectly)
~12" x Heatshrink tubing, cut up into ~3/4" sections and placed every 6" or so to hold the negative and positive LED ring wires together. This makes it easier when shoving the wires into the tubing, and just creates a more cohesive unit than two dangling wires.

Printed Part -
1 x LED Ring Holder (The linked piece is setup for an E3D hotend, but I don't see any reason why it would not work just as well with the stock hotend)

Start by printing the holder, if you have a print fan installed you will not need any supports. If you don't you will want to turn them on. As you can see below, I needed to cut a small amount of material off of either side as my print came out wider than the design because I didn't have my printer calibrated perfectly. Use a pair of pliers (or anything slightly conical) to pry the part open just a bit and slide the LED ring into the holder. Take care to note where the wire terminals are and line it up with where the rest of your hotend wires go into the tubing.


*Electronics Tip* Always consistently color-code your wires (red for positive and black for negative. This makes keeping track of connections much easier.

If you are doing it the quick and dirty way (with splices), you can keep the wires that come with the ring attached and just splice into your E3D heatsink fan wires wherever is convenient. Otherwise, de-solder the factory wires and solder a pair of ~3' wires to the terminals on the ring. The terminals are labeled so make sure to attach the right wire to the right pad. Then cut up your heatshrink tubing and slide the pieces onto the pair of wires. Shrink them every 6" or so to create what is essentially one wire; this keeps everything nice and clean.



Next take the ring/mount assembly and center your hotend in the ring and hook the lip of the mount over the X axis carriage as pictured below (*note* my ring is lit up in the picture, yours will not be). Don't attach it yet, just place it there for now. Feed the wires up through the wire tubing; the reason you placed the ring about where it is going to be mounted is so you can keep the correct length of wire at the ring end. If you are using the stock wires and a splice, splice the wires in wherever works best for your setup. If not, keep feeding the wires into the tubing until you get to the end of the tube. Flip your printer over and pull the end of the wires under the base where the electronics are.



The easiest way to provide power to the ring is to use a screwdriver to loosen the screw terminals pictured below, insert the ring wires, then tighten the terminal back up. If you choose to do it this way, skip down to attaching the mount to the X axis carriage.



However, if you want to make the next upgrade (canopy lights, more fans, etc.) much easier I suggest creating a mini screw terminal power bar. Cut two ~6" lengths of 22awg stranded wire and attach them to the stock terminal block as pictured above. Then solder the other ends to the perfboard as pictured below (there are many different ways of doing this). Depending on what type of perfboard setup you have (I recommend these little Perma-Proto boards from Adafruit as they have many other practical uses and have a familiar breadboard form factor) there are many different ways of setting these terminals up. I have pictured a couple different methods below, but it is ultimately up to you. I would recommend trying to keep the terminals directly on the power rails (as shown in the first picture) as that leaves you with a clean prototyping area for any future modifications or upgrades.




Once you have your board soldered up the way you like it, use double sided tape to attach it to the printer base somewhere it is easily accessible. You can use zip ties to hold it in place or just let it hang, but if you do this make sure to cover the bottom of the board in electrical tape to insulate any potential exposed short points.

Now you should test your wiring by turning the printer on. The LED ring should light up and stay on until you turn the printer off. Once you have tested to ensure you wired everything correctly you can go ahead and stick the ring mount in place with either Sugru or hot glue; just slide the lip of the mount back and forth until the ring is centered around your hotend. Now you have a beautifully lit built plate!



Next up I'll be making a how-to on creating lights that turn off, change color, blink, fade, etc. when a print is completed (or any other trigger you'd like); or perhaps going a bit further and really taking advantage of the Arduino platform already built into our system.

 

This is sweet! I will definitely be looking into this.

How about a write up for a color changing one that changes colors with the noise frequency of the printer? Like a techno-printer-rave-bot.

 

What a great idea and great guide. Thanks for taking the time to put it together. I made a version of your LED holder combined with a FAN duct so I can have a fan on each side AND the LED ring. it works great and I thought you might find it useful. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:655450