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The Barbie-themed microscope light I built from an angel eye LED ring worked fine for the last six years (!), but a much brighter ring with 60 aimed 5 mm LEDs for $17 delivered from a US seller caught my eye:

Microscope 60 LED ring light - in use — Microscope 60 LED ring light – in use

Although this ring looks much more professional, it didn’t quite fit the microscope, being designed for a round snout rather than a squarish one. This snout has a 47-ish mm threaded ring intended for filters & suchlike, so I built an adapter between that and the 60 mm ID of the LED ring:

Microscope 60 LED Ring Light Adapter - top - Slic3r — Microscope 60 LED Ring Light Adapter – top – Slic3r

The ring came with three long knurled screws which I replaced with much tidier M3 socket-head screws going into those holes:

Microscope 60 LED ring light - assembled - top — Microscope 60 LED ring light – assembled – top

The part going into the snout threads is deliberately (honest!) a bit small, so I could wrap it with soft tape for a good friction fit. The Barbie Ring didn’t weigh anything and I wound up using squares of double-sticky foam tape; it could come to that for this ring, too.

The adapter features a taper on the bottom for no particularly good reason, as the field-of-view tapers inward, not outward:

Microscope 60 LED Ring Light Adapter - bottom - Slicer — Microscope 60 LED Ring Light Adapter – bottom – Slicer

Seen from the bug’s POV, it’s a rather impressive spectacle:

Microscope 60 LED ring light - assembled - bottom — Microscope 60 LED ring light – assembled – bottom

The control box sports a power switch and a brightness knob. Come to find out the ring is actually too bright at full throttle; a nice problem to have.

That was easy!

The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:

	// LED Ring Light Mount – 60 mm ID ring
	// Ed Nisley KE4ZNU April 2017

	//- Extrusion parameters must match reality!

	ThreadThick = 0.25;
	ThreadWidth = 0.40;

	HoleWindage = 0.2;

	Protrusion = 0.1; // make holes end cleanly

	inch = 25.4;

	function IntegerMultiple(Size,Unit) = Unit * ceil(Size / Unit);

	//———————-
	// Dimensions

	ID = 0;
	OD = 1;
	LENGTH = 2;

	ScopeThread = [43.0,46.5,4.0]; // scope snout thread, ID = minimum invisible

	LEDRing = [ScopeThread[ID],60.0,8.0];
	LEDScrewOffset = 4.0;
	LEDScrewOD = 3.0;
	LEDScrews = 3;

	OAH = ScopeThread[LENGTH] + LEDRing[LENGTH];

	NumSides = 34LEDScrews; // get symmetry for screws

	//———————-
	// Useful routines

	module PolyCyl(Dia,Height,ForceSides=0) { // based on nophead's polyholes

	Sides = (ForceSides != 0) ? ForceSides : (ceil(Dia) + 2);
	FixDia = Dia / cos(180/Sides);
	cylinder(r=(FixDia + HoleWindage)/2,h=Height,$fn=Sides);
	}

	//———————-
	// Build it

	difference() {
	rotate(180/NumSides)
	union() {
	cylinder(d=ScopeThread[OD],h=OAH,$fn=NumSides);
	cylinder(d=LEDRing[OD],h=LEDRing[LENGTH],$fn=NumSides);
	}

	translate([0,0,-Protrusion])
	rotate(180/NumSides)
	cylinder(d=ScopeThread[ID],h=OAH + 2*Protrusion,$fn=NumSides);

	translate([0,0,-Protrusion])
	rotate(180/NumSides)
	cylinder(d1=LEDRing[OD] – 26ThreadWidth,
	d2=ScopeThread[ID],
	h=LEDRing[LENGTH] + Protrusion,$fn=NumSides);

	for (i=[0:LEDScrews-1])
	rotate(i*360/LEDScrews)
	translate([LEDRing[OD]/2 – LEDScrewOD,0,LEDRing[LENGTH] – LEDScrewOffset])
	rotate([0,90,0]) rotate(180/6)
	cylinder(d=LEDScrewOD,h=LEDScrewOD + Protrusion,$fn=6);
	}

view raw LED Ring Light Mount – 60 mm.scad hosted with ❤ by GitHub

The New Hotness

Microscope 60 LED Ring Light Adapter