I love my drill press.  It is a 1980s era craftsman floor standing drill press.  The table I made for it is honestly not my best idea, but that isn’t the drill press’ fault.  The lighting scheme is a little lacking.  It has a single bulb tucked behind the spindle, and it does ok, but LEDs will make it better!

I found these things called “angel eyes” for cars.  They are used to make cars look like they have fancy rings around their headlights.  You can get a two pack of different diameters for around 10 bucks.  They are perfectly suited for ring lights.

I took the ring and bonded it down to a bit of plywood cut with an inner diameter that just presses onto the un-moving part of my drill press.  To add additional lighting I found these patches of packaged LEDs used to replace in-car dome lights.  They can be found in 4 packs for around 10 bucks.  All of these parts already have resistors built in because they are designed to be hooked up to a car’s 12V line.

The plywood square will go over the area that previously had the drill’s light bulb.  I used recessed magnets to hold them in place.  The wires got wrapped around to the back, and soldered together along with the ring light.  Hot glue helped with all the cable management.

I connectorized the lighting half and the power supply so I could separate the two if need be.  Speaking of power supply, the ring light and each light patch take a few hundred mili-amps each.  Get a 12V supply with at least an amp output.  I used an adapter that screws into a regular bulb socket and gives a plug outlet.

The power supply is screwed into where the bulb used to be, wires are routed, and lights installed.  Lets see how it looks with no light, with the old bulb, and with my new lighting system.

No Lights

Old Bulb

New LEDs

Very bright!  I guess for the 30-40 bucks I spent on parts I could have bought an off the shelf drill press ring light.  Maybe it would provide more light, but I kind of doubt it.  I know it wouldn’t be as compact or fit as snugly as this thing does.  The last thing to keep in mind when doing this is free slack on the ring light.  The section I attached the light to moves when the drill press comes down.  Provide enough slack to allow free movement.