I'm sorry if there is a thread already floating around.
I recently had to switch my CNC computer and had to go with a smooth stepper. It's working fine but I got to thinking about some of my old gripes about my unit. Chief among them being lighting the work space. Up until now I have been shining a flash light in through the clear top of my dust shoe. After seeing the daytime running lights on some cars. (I'm sure you've seen the rings around the headlights. I started doing some digging and over on superbrightleds .com I picked up a 12 volt LED ring. Since I use a computer power supply to power some of the items (other than the stepper driver) I knew I had 12 volts available from the power supply. My plan at this point is to take some wire, run it through the cable guides to the router and the led ring. I'll attach it to the router using some Loctite Fun-Tak mounting putty to start. I figure this will give me plenty of light where the router is cutting.
Yes I did that with a small pug in 12v power supply,the first ones (angel eyes ) i think they call them got knocked about and some of the leds stopped working .No big deal so this time I bought a pair 80 mm in diameter and they are silicon-ed on a purpose built removable plate 1 mm ally .Then I just use a plug system to disconnect when not using or moving the head ,here is the best bit I purchased the ones with covers this time they work great .