Side Project - Modding a £3 Floodlight to “Improve” my Videos
I recently found a 500W halogen lamp for £3 in a charity shop. A quick inspection revealed it was 18 years old and had never been used. Furthermore, it had originally been bought at a shop which had long gone bust. I was the last person standing between it and landfill so I decided to buy it and try to put it to good use.
The first step was to wire a mains cable. At that point, I realised the light was damaged (which is probably the reason it was never used in the first place). The back cover screw posts were all broken thus I wired the cable (using a length of scrap wire from a broken desk fan) and kept my hands well clear of the back when I turned it on. The lamp came right to life but it was clear I'd have to LED mod it. 500W of heat is a lot if it's right above your desk! When testing it, I thought I'd probably be able to start a fire if I held my receipt over and near the light!
It was clear an LED replacement was needed so I was pleased to find a drop in R7s LED replacement for less than £5 online. It remains to be seen how long mine lasts but it seems to be of a decent quality; I hope to get plenty of use out of it! Before installing the LED, I used superglue to glue the back cover on. My reasoning was that I wouldn't have any reason to remove it. If I needed to, I could have cut it with a rotary tool and accessed the internals. Installing the bulb was a breeze and after slotting it in, it came straight to life.
The project was progressing fairly smoothly so I moved to mount the assembly to my desk. Conveniently, I have an IKEA Lack atop an IKEA Lack atop my main desk. Not a conventional layout but it made sense at the time to utilise as much space in the room as I could. Either way, I just had to drill 3 holes in the side and use some overkill screws and 3D printed spacers to secure everything. The model came from Printables, it took under 30 minutes to print 3 posts.
Once mounted, I realised the power cable wasn't long enough if I was going to route it any way other than diagonally above the desk. It thus needed to be extended. This time I chose cable from a scrap microwave. The gauge difference doesn't matter as I used expensive crimp on butt connectors and the resulting current draw won't even be 1A. If you do a lot of wiring projects e.g. adding connectors to a PSU, repairing a broken power cable or splicing two cables together, I recommend buying a quality crimper and crimps. All I had to do was cut the ends off of each cable, strip back the 3 conductors inside and crimp them together - don't forget to put heatshrink on ahead of time.
I installed a switch which I had in my spare parts box. I don't remember buying it thus I didn't include it in the overall cost; it was clearly something I intended to use elsewhere but never did. I sadly wasn't able to record the process but I don't like recording mains Voltage stuff and even if I had been willing to record it, I had nowhere to set up the camera!
After wiring the switch, I finished up the project by sticking some matte tape to the glass. I unscrewed the front and installed it on the inside and outside of the enclosure. I'm not worried about it peeling or melting. It's branded and this LED remains cool even after extended use. Installation only took 10 minutes and greatly reduced the rolling effect and made the light nicer to look at as it was more diffused. If you do something similar, I'd recommend a diffusion layer!
So, the light works but the overall result could have gone better. Whilst I'm happy the lamp was saved from landfill, I can't get as much use out of it as I'd hoped. The idea had been to use it whenever I had a video to make but the reality is it's too bright for some shots and the rolling effect means I have to consider the placement of the subject and the other lighting in the room. Either way, it's already proving useful, especially for repairs that aren't recorded or when I need to read a chip marking on a motherboard for example. I can use it to help make thumbnails, create product listings and work in the dark. The videos I am able to use it in will be better too!
Thank you for reading. As usual, the accompanying YouTube video is linked below:
(Repair Wins Blog - Post #3)
(May 2026)
