Transforming Work Light Is More Than Meets The Eye

While it does use the same M12 batteries, this impeccably engineered work light isn’t an official Milwaukee product. It’s the latest creation from [Chris Chimienti], who’s spent enough time in the garage and under the hood to know a thing or two about what makes a good work light. The modular design not only allows you to add or subtract LED panels as needed, but each section is able to rotate independently so it points exactly where you need it.

Magnets embedded in the 3D printed parts mean the light modules not only firmly attach to one another, but can be stuck to whatever you’re working on. Or you could just stack all the lights up vertically and use the rocket-inspired “landing legs” of the base module keep it vertical. Even if the light gets knocked around, the tension provided by rubber bands attached to each fold-out leg means it will resist falling over. In the video after the break [Chris] says the little nosecone on top is just for fun and you don’t have to print it, but we don’t see how you can possibly resist.

The same PCB is used on both ends of the light modules.

Of course, 3D printed parts and magnets don’t self-illuminate. The LED panels and switches are salvaged from cheap lights that [Chris] found locally for a few bucks, and a common voltage regulator board is used to step the 12 volts coming from the Milwaukee battery down to something the LEDs can use. He’s designed a very slick reversible PCB that’s used on either end of each light module to transfer power between them courtesy of semi-circular traces on one side and and matching pogo pins on the other.

As we saw in his recent Dremel 3D20 rebuild, [Chris] isn’t afraid to go all in during the design phase. The amount of CAD work that went into this project is astounding, and serves as fantastic example of the benefits to be had by designing the whole assembly at once rather than doing it piecemeal. It might take longer early on, but the final results really speak for themselves.

3 thoughts on “Transforming Work Light Is More Than Meets The Eye

  1. Those M12 batteries hold quite a bit of power. I have a Milwaukee Pro-PEX expander tool and did all the plumbing connections in a small house with one charge. Only two companies make this tool, the other is Makita. Would be nice if Ryobi would make one but their cordless tools for PEX are all for the PEX-B crimp connections, none for the PEX-A expansion connections.

  2. I wonder if you could just bolt this to those cheesy LED bars and only need the adapters? I’ll watch the video, but whst happened to write ups and blogs? Is there a script tgat can scrape the blog links from youtube vids so i dont have to go to yoytube and let the video start to get them?

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