Installing a backlight in a cordless screwdriver. LED backlight in a drill/driver Black&Decker EPC12CA How to install an LED in a screwdriver


Most modern screwdrivers sold in stores are already equipped with a backlight that turns on automatically along with the tool. But what to do if your screwdriver does not have this function? Of course, you can make it yourself, especially since you can do it in literally 10 minutes from scrap parts.

To make the backlight we will need:

  1. A simple graphite pencil.
  2. A small motor from a DVD, toy or trimmer.
  3. Stationery eraser.
  4. The LED can be removed from a flashlight or lamp.
  5. Hot glue and soldering iron

Backlight assembly

The first step is to saw off a small part from the pencil, which will serve as a housing for the LED.



Then we clamp the pencil in a vice and drill out inner part, the drill can be taken according to the diameter of the graphite rod. But if you manage to remove the rod without drilling, that’s also good; sometimes they come out easily if you rest the pencil with the rod against something hard and press. The wires from the LED will pass through this hole.





We solder the threaded wires to the legs of the LED; which one is soldered where does not matter, since the motor will generate alternating voltage. By the way, the motor in this design acts as a voltage generator.



We coat the base of the pencil with hot glue and thread the wires into the hole and place the LED on it,



Now we install the entire structure on a screwdriver. To do this, apply hot-melt glue to the top of the screwdriver, the motor pulley should look out onto the moving part of the chuck, then glue it and wait for the glue to cool.





Then we do the same with the LED, but now in the lower part near the button. Apply hot glue and glue the workpiece in place.

Now all that remains is to connect the motor with the cartridge; for this you will need a regular rubber band. We put it on a pulley, and the other part on a movable cartridge, it turns out something like a belt drive.



Now, when you turn on the screwdriver, the chuck will begin to spin, thereby setting the motor in motion, current will begin to be generated, and the LED will light up.


It shines brightly enough, enough to illuminate the work area in poor lighting conditions. The main thing is to take a good and bright LED, so it is recommended to remove it from the flashlight or lighting lamp.

That's all, I advise you to collect this

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Any serious machine needs its own backlight, independent of anything else. At one point I got tired of spinning table lamp during work, directing it first to the machine, then back to the table. And then I hardware store got an LED module...

The module is designed for 12 volts, but I didn’t want to fence off the transformer power supply, although the space allowed.

Having picked out the compound in the right places to check the connections, I sketched out its diagram:

The diagram shows two pairs of LEDs connected to each other in series and connected to the power source in parallel. A banal reduction in the value of the resistors did not produce results, since when connected in series they refused to burn at 5 volts, even when replacing the resistors with jumpers.

The most the simplest way remake the module to operate on 5 volts - unsolder 2 resistors and use jumpers to achieve a parallel connection of the LEDs:

With such a connection The resistor value should be slightly lower than 33 ohms , but there wasn’t a wide selection of low-resistance resistors, much less SMD ones. The brightness of the glow dropped a little, but not fatally.

Now the only thing left to do is to put everything together, or rather secure it on a drilling machine.

The telephone charger was attached using a clamp, already behind the existing bolt, so as not to drill into the cast iron. The pins of the plug are slightly shortened, the wires soldered to them are inserted into the junction box of the electric motor. When the machine is turned on, voltage will be supplied to the motor with the power supply, and the backlight will light up.

Thinking about it for a long time the best option location of the LED module on the machine, I came to the conclusion that it it is better to attach it to the front part of the quill . In this position, the work area will be better illuminated, and the shadow from the drill will not interfere.

For more uniform illumination It is necessary to place another module on the back side, but for now I considered this unnecessary.

That's basically it. IN general operation will indicate whether illumination is necessary to the rear of the drilling area. There’s one more detail that doesn’t make me happy: the power supply turns on with a 2-second delay. If I can’t get used to it, I’ll have to install another block.

Added 01/01/17

I was pleased with the backlight, I even got used to the fact that the power supply starts with a delay, but...

The original Chinese cartridge died; a self-clamping one, 2 times longer, was installed as a replacement. When drilling with small drills, it began to create a shadow. It was decided to make a ring light:

Made with 5050 LEDs and 1206 resistors (30 ohms for 5 volts)

At first glance it seemed that the backlight was ideal:

But when using small drills we have a spot in which nothing is visible:

I had to make an additional flashlight using a one-watt LED:

The flashlight was blinding. Put on a plastic ring:

I installed another power supply in a new location:

IN general outline it turned out something like this:

Now we have normal light:

Well, a few conclusions to all of the above:

  • Short chuck + long drill = Ring light
  • Long chuck + short drill = Side illuminated
  • Don’t bother and buy a machine lamp with a gooseneck

Let's watch a video of homemade lighting:

As you understand, for our illumination we need a diode. It can be purchased at a store or pulled from an unnecessary LED flashlight.

It looks like this:

Also, in addition to the diode, we need a resistor, a battery, a two-core copper wire that does not straighten, a switch and the box itself for all this:


So, as you know, the wire that is longer on the diode is “+”. It needs to be connected to our two-core copper wire. This can be done simply by inserting the “positive” wire of the diode under the insulation or soldering it, as we did:


Now you need to assemble the mechanism itself, that is electrical circuit. Copper wire We connect it through a resistor to the switch and then to the battery, which will be the power source.


We check the structure we have assembled. As you can see, everything works:


That's all! Now we take the tool we need: for example, a jigsaw. We secure our box with the “insides” in a convenient place of our instrument using tape or Velcro as shown in the photo:




Now, due to the fact that our two-core wire is copper and does not straighten, we can direct it to any surface without any problems:


We can do the same with a drill (and indeed with any tool). In the same way, we fix the structure on the drill and direct the LED to the place on the surface with which we will have to work:






Now you can easily use your favorite tool, but it already has a backlight that will make your “life” easier.

Among the screwdrivers with high price category meet screwdrivers with light working area. Sometimes this is very convenient, so we decided to modify the Skill 2006 AA screwdriver with our own hands. At one time, it was one of the cheapest screwdrivers with a battery voltage of 12 volts and a traction force of 28 N*m.

Having carefully examined the screwdriver, you will notice that there is no place for installing LED backlighting where it is usually installed in expensive models due to the presence of a housing securing screw.

As a result, it was decided to install backlight into the battery, and supply power to the LED through a switch mounted in the same battery.

Disassembling the battery is not difficult: unscrew 4 screws, remove the lower half of the case and, gently pressing on the contacts, remove the battery banks themselves.

The LED and button will be installed in the upper battery case, with the LED facing the work area screwdriver.
To install the LED and switch, we make holes in the upper housing.




The screwdriver is ready for installation of lighting.

Now about the lighting itself.

We will power the white LED, designed for a supply voltage of 3 volts, from a 12 volt battery. To do this, you need to install a quenching resistor. In the search engine we enter “selection of a quenching resistor for an LED” and a whole bunch of links to online calculators are displayed. We go to any one and see something similar to this:

We enter the data and get a ready-made calculation. First, I introduced a 20 mA LED current, but at this current the light was not very bright. As a result, a resistor with a resistance of 270 Ohms was chosen.

We are looking for such a resistor (I found a Soviet MLT in my deposits, soldered off from somewhere). Next, we solder the elements to each other, not forgetting to mark the connection polarity in any way. It turned out that the LED reached the button with its leg.



After installing the button and LED, fill them with hot glue.

Solder the wires to the battery terminals. With the positive wire, everything is simple - there is a place for soldering, but the negative copper (or brass) contact is covered with metal, to which rosin does not stick. We do it simply: scrape it off with a knife metal coating to non-ferrous metal and solder with rosin without any problems. You can, of course, use special fluxes, it will be even more convenient.


So, we soldered it, turned on the backlight - it works. Now we assemble the battery in reverse order.
As a result, we got a screwdriver with backlight independent of the engine.




At the same time, the battery can now be used as a flashlight when searching for some fallen small item.



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