Here is my latest mod. I made a LED light ring. I had cut the vacuum shoe to fit the inner circle. It's all SMD. I powered the LEDs with 14.5V that I use to drive my outrunner spindle (it's in another thread from way before).

I cut the outlines of the ring with a 1/16 bit. The traces I cut with 20° bit that I bought on ebay form China.

I had made a 'bed' for the PCB board to get a near true cut as possible. Still not perfect but it is only 2 or 3 thou out.

 

Not so fast, Shaun! I still use a flashlight to set the zero height of the bit. I too thought that this mod will help but I get a much better setting with the flashlight. When the bit and shadow are touching I know it's zero height.

Still, I'm glad I did the mod. It's nice when the area where I cut is nicely lit up.

 

Looks excellent! What are the part numbers for the LED's and the resistor(?) next to each? This is running on the 12v DC from the power supply?

 

The LEDs are the 5050 LEDs. I bought them on Ebay from China. Search Ebay for 5050 led and it will come up. I bought fifty of them even though I used only 10 since they had cost something like $8.50, I think, or maybe even less.

The resistors are 430 ohm, if I recall correctly. Indeed I use the 12v power supply that is running the outrunner, as you can see in the picture. I cranked it up to 14.5V. The LEDs get a bit hot. They could use a bigger resistor. Maybe 500 or 550 ohm but it's OK as it is. I didn't burn any LED so far. I bought 100 resistors from Digikey for $1.45. I had bought other stuff too so that the shipping was negligible.

I used soldering past to solder everything. I highly recommend using it when you use SMD. All you need is a drop. You hold the SMD in place and touch it with a 60w iron. It almost instantly melts and you're done.