Anyone have a ring light that doesn't suck?

[mph7]

Hi all,
I have an AmScope microscope, but the color temperature of the LED ring illuminator it came with was super high, probably 6000-7000K. I sometimes work at night and prefer a warmer light. I swapped it for an old fiber optic/halogen illuminator, which is much nicer, but now I have a bulky fiber optic cable and a separate box with a loud fan.

I'd really love to find an LED ring light with a warmer color temperature, but every light I find is either 6000-7000K or doesn't list the temperature at all. Anyone have a lead?

[SteveyG]

I did DIY a design on my channel. I can't remember if I put all the design files on my website, but if not I will update tonight.

My findings are OTS ring lights are pretty crap, even if you pay for expensive ones.

[SilverSolder]

The other problem is, are the LEDs used the type that have holes in the emitted light spectrum, or are they the high "photo quality" ones that we really want...

I'm beginning to think DIY is not such a bad idea

[schmitt trigger]

White leds really suck for biological sample illumination.
The required wavelengths to examine skin for instance, are either very low level or absent altogether.

I once read a similar project which used RGB leds.
By individually controlling each channel, you can adjust color temperature much better. Without being perfect, it nevertheless is a significant improvement.

[SteveyG]

White leds really suck for biological sample illumination.
The required wavelengths to examine skin for instance, are either very low level or absent altogether.

I once read a similar project which used RGB leds.
By individually controlling each channel, you can adjust color temperature much better. Without being perfect, it nevertheless is a significant improvement.

RGB could work, I would be concerned about the homogenisation of the light from the emitters though. Depending on the implementation you might get odd colour bands at the edges of any shadows, diffusers will help but at the detriment of light intensity in the region of interest.

Generally speaking though, we're not usually analysing colours when soldering. A good high quality 3000-4000 K LED is probably sufficient for most situations.

[rfclown]

I like fluorescent ring lights. I use inexpensive 8W lights that I got online after I accidentally broke my Bausch & Lomb fluorescent bulb and found that replacement bulbs cost a fortune. I had a B&L incandescent illuminator on my second scope (both B&L stereo zoom 4). When I found cheap fluorescent ring lights online I bought one. Came with an extra bulb. Very happy with it so bought another to replace the incandescent. I've used both for 10 years and haven't needed the spare bulbs yet.

[Ground_Loop]

I got the halogen source fiber optic ring light for mine.  The intensity is adjustable and produces a very comfortable image, but the light source takes up some room on the bench.

[TERRA Operative]

On the idea of fluorescent, what about CCFL rings?
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=ccfl+angel

For lighting my videos, I use ebay LED strips using 98+ CRI 5000K LED's which give out a lot of nice light, I'm sure they are available somewhere as loose parts.

[Psi]

A ring light I would love but have never seen is a one with a primary set of led's AND a second dimmable set of LEDs focused only the center of the image.
So at higher zoom levels you can crank them up and compensate for the lack of light issue at high zoom.

[Electro Fan]

Not super economical but a ring light and a dual gooseneck can give adjustable lighting coming from different angles and you should have pretty good light to see whatever you are looking at.  Might not work for all board sizes but probably fine for most boards that can generally be examined with an Amscope.

[Berni]

Not super economical but a ring light and a dual gooseneck can give adjustable lighting coming from different angles and you should have pretty good light to see whatever you are looking at.  Might not work for all board sizes but probably fine for most boards that can generally be examined with an Amscope.

This goose neck light is indeed the better choice, the ring light likes to produce a lot of glare on circuit boards.

As for quickly changing the color temperature, you can get some photographic gel sheets to cut up and place over your light. They are simply blue or yellow colored pieces of transparent plastic that go over the light to change its color temperature. This used to be used a lot in photography to adjust the color temperature out of regular tungsten lamps or arc lamps that can't be made to produce any temperature you want, but they could tweak it by filtering the light trough these slightly colored sheets.

EDIT: Also do not use RGB LEDs for this! Its hard to get the colors to mix properly and even then you get a very poor color rendering index due to the very peaky spectrum. If you do want to make your own adjustable color temperature lamp the thing to do is to get both very warm white LEDs and very cool white LEDs, then blend between them in proportion to get any color temperature in between. If both LEDs have good CRI then the blend will also have good CRI

[Shock]

This is the one Alex from Northbridge Fix now sells which he states is similar to an Amscope model (shown in the same video). Have you tried either of these models or seen how easy it is to change leds over or perhaps diffuse? It's aluminum, angled and relativity compact so better than most of the cheap plastic varieties.