Make Your Own USB Light

USB lights come in handy for several reasons. If you work in the middle of the night and do not want to disturb your partner, or just can not stand bright lights, or if you have trouble seeing the keys of the keyboard and you are typing your way from deadline to deadline. A USB nightlight is not too expensive, but it is even less expensive to build it yourself,.

What you need

First: Flexible tube of approximately 30 cm. The length and color of tube depends on your personal taste, just make sure it is flexible enough as you will want to be able to accommodate your night light to your needs. There are several tubes that will do, even certain short coaxial (TV) cables if emptied from the wires can become night light tubes.


Second: One White Luminous LED. These come in different lumens (lumens is for LEDs what watts is for light bulbs. Just make sure you have a bright one. They are not expensive at all and they will outlast any light bulb. You can get other colors if you want, but make sure they are Luminous LEDs.


Third: You will need an old USB cable.


Fourth: A solder and soldering iron.


Environmental Safety: Prioritize your safety. Keep in mind that you are working with electricity, so keep your environment dry. This article is not responsible for your own interpretations of this article.


Start Building your Night Light


Step one: Cut the end of USB cable that does not go into the computer. Strip the insulation of the end.


Step two: Pass the cable through the flexible tube you have chosen.


Step three: Cut the cable to adjust to the length of Flexible tube. 30 cm should be good enough.


Step four: Solder the red and black USB wires to the LED's positive and negative end. Which is which? LEDs have two legs which are the cathode (-) and the anode (+). The longer leg is positive, and the shorter leg is the negative. So connect the red USB wire to the longer positive LED light, and the black USB wire to the short negative leg of the LED.


Step five: Now fix the cables inside the tube, and adjust the LEDS to one of its ends, and the USB to the other. You can use adapters to fix the LEDS in position or just black tape it with black tape.


Step six: Connect your new light to the computer.


You can use different LEDs, and different tubes. Keep in mind that you are using 5 volts.

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