ProdMod ™

, originally uploaded by Mudstone.

I just notice that mudstone added an assortment of amazing photos taken of the ProdMod LED hoop. I like this one in particular. It looks like the hoop was rolled on the floor and taken with a long exposure setting of the camera. It’s great how you can see each LED as it approaches an touches the ground. Wow. I love it.

It also reminds me how bright the ProdMod hoop lights are.

If you have some cool pics of your ProdMod hoop you would like to share please add them to the ProdMod Flickr Pool.

In fact I am inspired to have a contest!

Rules:

1.Become a member of my Flickr Pool

2. Add your best pics of your ProdMod hoop in action between now and Nov 7th.

3. Make sure you refer to it being a ProdMod hoop in either the title or the description of that photo.

4. Tag the photo with the term “prodmod” and “ledhoop”.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/prodmodledhulahoop/

The photo with the most positive comments will win either:

A free rechargeable upgrade kit

or

$40 credit to anything sold on my site*.
*This does not include hoop kits as they are sold through makershed.com.

And please make sure to use the ProdMod LED hoop in your photo entry - I can tell

I am teaching a workshop at 3rd Ward on Wednesday April 16th in Brooklyn. Bring your hoop parts or buy your hoop at a discounted promotional rate and pick it up in class. I’ll be focusing on the 1inch thick hoop but I can also accomodate someone with other sizes. I will take you step by step through making your very own LED Hula Hoop!

This is also a great opportunity to ask questions or maybe even repair a hoop you already own. Does your Psihoop or superhooper need refreshing? Busted switch?
Bring it in and i’ll see what I can do.

If you are in the area I recommend checking it out. Even if you aren’t sure about buying one you can sign up and see how its done. Meet people with similar interests, share info. I’ll also try to bring a few extra kits for last minute purchases.

If you are interested please sign up today, the original deadline is tomorrow. Full details can be found at bottom of 3rd ward’s page.

I hope to see you there!

** If you are having trouble with any links or can’t pay through paypal please contact me. Paypal should allow you to pay with credit card even without being a member of PayPal.

So if you are coming on Wednesday here are a few tools you can bring to help facilitate the workshop. If you can bring any of these items please leave a comment below so we know how many to expect. Just use a nick name that I will recognize.

- Hair Dryer
- Cutters
- Needle Nose Pliers or Leatherman Tool
- Wire Strippers - I have 5 but a few more wont hurt
- Power Drill/Power screwdriver with drill bits
- Rotary tool - we have just one so far.
- Knife or swiss army knife

Have you already purchased this kit and never got around to finish it? Well now there is no excuse. Bring it with you to 3rd Ward in Brooklyn on April 24th and finish it off with my help - if you need it. Or come to show off your product to the rest of us. Perhaps you can be a nice prodmodder and give back by helping others with their kits. Not all of us know what a soldering iron is

I will be instructing an informal workshop for the ProdMod LED Camera Light at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn, NY on April 24th. The class is free and everyone is welcome, but you’ll have to bring your own parts or purchase a kit of parts. For this special workshop I am offering the kit for sale without shipping so you can just pick it up at class time. You can go ahead and buy it using this link. Otherwise you can order it normally and have it shipped to you. Refer to the link on the right column of the site.

But to join the class you will have to sign up through 3rd Ward’s website. Their information and further details about the class can be found here towards the bottom of the page.

You might even use this time to explore new modifications to your Camera Light and get ideas from others.

**NEW!! - ***Click here for latest assembly intructions***

Craft, a sister magazine of Make, is about to publish a DIY LED Hula Hoop article in Volume 6 due on the shelves Feb 5^th. It caught my eye because I featured jeffkobi’s instructable months ago and planned to create my own DIY instructions using translucent tubing. Obviously Craft beat me to it. If you are a Craft subscriber you can read the digital edition right now. (click on little blue monitor icon)

These hoops are popular at festivals like burningman and at some dance clubs around the world.

Their instructions involve using translucent tubing, color LEDs, resistors, a switch and a battery.

After you are done reading the tutorial, depending on your expertise, you might be left with a few unanswered questions, like:

-How do I choose LEDs with the same Voltage Drop?
-What resistor value do I need for these LEDs?
-How exactly do I strip the wire with a razor blade?

Then you are likely to ask:
-How much is this all going to cost me?
-Can I just buy 10ft of tubing instead of 100ft?

The above are all potential barriers that may prevent you from trying this out. I’d like to avoid that.

In this article I will answer the above technical questions, but I will also show you how much you can save by buying a kit that includes a pre-cut 11ft tube with all the parts you need to make just one LED Hula Hoop. This saves you time, money, and reduces wasted tubing. In the process you’ll also see where you can buy the parts on your own if you dont believe in saving money, or plan to make 10 hoops anyway

So lets start with LED selection:

***By the way, if you want the latest and greatest LED Hula Hoop Making instructions you should skip over to this other page. The post you are reading is quite old****

Read more »

NEW !! - A better set of instructions can be found here Complete Kit Instructions

Tests Battery Test| Photo Sample|Video Test
Upgrade Built-in screw stud|Fixed Voltage | 4LED
Vote for improvements!

Ever since digital cameras took decent video I stopped carrying around my DV video camera and instead use my point and shoot digital camera to take a few minutes of MOV or MPG video here and there. The only problem is my digicam is not equipped with a light to brighten up the videos I take indoors. So a while ago I searched for an LED light to use with my digital camera and I found one company camerabright.com that makes one that you screw into the tripod mount standard on all cameras. It costs about $30 to $40 bucks, has 4 white LEDs and takes 6 CR2032 coin cell batteries. I thought the price was ok, but there were some things I didn’t like about it and other people have also commented on.

So I decided to make my own and show you how.

First here is a comparison of the ProdMod DIY camera light vs. Camerabright.

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