Another DIY lightbox.

[simon84]

Well here is my effort, gone for foam board, white LED's and tracing paper. Cost about £10 to make which is why I went for this rather than a costly A4 EL panel.

Foam board (A1) £5

Draftmens tracing paper £0.75

LED light x2 £0.99

Battery box £0.99

On-off button £2.25

Seems to give off a nice flat illuminated field, funny thing is I finished making this a few days ago, this one is for my WO66, and I've now more or less decided I want to swap the 66 out for an 80. Should be able to open the holes up to fit a bigger scope in there. The illuminated panels acutally have a hole of 125mm so should be big enough for a larger scope.

I have since taped up all the edges with black electrical tape as you could see light coming through, I think the outside of the box will need to be blacked out aswell, as in a completely dark room it glows like a lamp, not much good at a SP.

I'm going to make one for my Equinox 120 over the weekend, that one is going to be huge.....

[Deneb]

Nice one Simon..

Nadeem.

[simon84]

Cheers Nadeem.

Going to do some tests with it tonight to see what the flats are going to be like.

[simon84]

Cant believe no one apart from Nadeem liked my lightbox.

Just a addition to this, I will be changing the design for my 120. I have now found remote controlled LED lights which negate having to get the batteries and an on off switch on the back of the box, so you can just set it up ready for your flats and press the magic button. Job done.

[Ant]

Only just seen this thread!

Looks good Si, it looks like it'll work a treat. Flats make such a massive difference to image processing!

I do understand the "EL is expensive" comment, but by the time that you have made two of them (assuming it's a whole another one your going to make), you'll be over £20...

I think that all in my EL panel an perspex was around £40.

They are huge in comparison to the EL panel that I made (mines A4 x 3" thick) and my A4 panel fit's all three scopes that I have and the two camera lenses.

I look forward to seeing your images now you have a light box for flats.

Cheers

Ant

[Paxo]

One drawback with the foamboard designs is that there is significant leakage of light from the box itself. This is fine if your imaging on your own, but causes major problems if at a star party for example. I had a very similar design this time last year, but now have an EL panel which is much easier and convenient.

Steve..

[MarkF]

Looks really good Simon, I bet you got some job satisfaction out of that one.

[simon84]

Ant, can I ask where you got your EL panel from? I was looking at the Earlsmann site and they were coming it at around £60 for an A4 one.

Light pollution has been put to an end by wrapping it in black shrink wrap. It did look like a lamp though before hand.

[simon84]

Looks really good Simon, I bet you got some job satisfaction out of that one.

Always, probably another reason why I went this way. Just love making stuff.

[ottUp]

Nice work - it looks beautiful, and hope the other works as well. Fun to tinker this stuff together isn't it?

Richard (of McWiki)