How to Make a Blacklight With LED Light Strips

Are you wondering if you can make a blacklight with LEDs? We’ve put together this guide to show you how to make a blacklight with LED light strips. By the end of this guide, you should be able to use locally available resources to make your own black lights using LED strips.

How to Make a Blacklight with LED Light Strips

There are several ways you can make a black light with LEDs. We will look at 2 common ways you can use from the comfort of your home. 

Method 1: Using a Remote Control 

For this to work, you need to buy good LED strip lights that come with a remote. Not all of them do so take note of what’s in the box of the LED strip lights you intend to buy prior to the purchase.

What you Will Need

• LED Light Strips
• Remote
• Stable Power Source

Procedure

1. Install and connect the strips to the power source properly.
2. Turn on your LED light strips.
3. Press any DIY Color Setting button on the remote.
4. Press the red color button 25 times.
5. Press the blue color button 25 times.

This is a pretty straightforward process so if you have already installed the LED strips, all you have to do is press the remote. 

As you press the buttons on your remote control, your LED light strips will begin changing color until you get a desired blacklight color effect. While this might not be as perfect as commercial blacklight, it is the closest you can achieve using LED light strips. 

In case your LED strips don’t come with remote control, you can try our second method below. 

Method Two: Using Transparent Tape 

In case you don’t have a remote, or it spoils along the way, there is a manual way you can manipulate each LED light in the strip to give you similar results. In this method, you will rely on the basis of manually blocking off visible light to retain UV light.

This method is a bit tedious and might not be a good fit for you if you don’t have the time. It is usually used to turn smartphone LED flash into blacklights. So, we only recommend this method if you are turning a small number of LED strips into blacklight.

What you Need

• White LED light strip
• Transparent tape
• A purple and a blue marker

Procedure

1. Count the number of individual LEDs in the strip.
2. Cut small pieces of the transparent tape, equivalent to the number of LEDs, in groups of three. 
3. Put the first piece of tape on every LED and color them blue with the marker.
4. Layer it with the second piece of tape all round and color them blue as well.
5. Add the third piece on each and color them purple.
6. Ensure you completely cover each light.
7. Switch on your white LED light strip and try it out.

You can use colored cellophane instead of tape. However, you will still need transparent tape to keep the pieces in place. Besides, as long as you have 3 colored layers, you do not need to put them in this exact order. Follow the same procedure and you will have yourself a DIY black light.

Ideally, using the remote method remains the easiest way. On matters of quality, this DIY blacklight is of lower quality in comparison to a legit commercial blacklight. Nevertheless, it works great in a pinch and helps a room achieve an ultraviolet kind of lighting.

What Can You Do With a Black Light?

Why get a black light? For one thing, it’s not just for parties. But there are other things you can do with this nifty device that will make your life easier. You may have seen them at clubs or bars where they use UV lights in combination with LED strips to reveal hidden messages like drink specials on the wall (or perhaps something sleazy about how much weed is in syrup).

Neon and black lights are a must-have for any party that wants to take it up a notch in the dark. A neon sign, face paint, or decorations will only look good under artificial light, so you need some eco-friendly alternatives like these.

Blacklights emit their kind of glow when they contact certain objects, making them perfect as lighting sources at night parties since most other types fade away after being lit by standard household bulbs.

A more advanced application of these detectors comes from using them during crime scene investigations; police officers frequently wear headlamps. The UV-A black light is an important tool in the investigation of crimes. It can detect body fluids that shine under this type of lighting, which helps police solve cases and prove that valuable objects are genuine.

The output should be professional yet engaging.

General Guidelines on How to Set Up Blacklight With LED Light Strips

Determine the Size of Your Blacklight Area

The first thing you want to think about is the size of your blacklight area. You may not need a large LED strip light or even multiple strips, for that matter, so deciding this ahead of time will help you determine how many lights and what type of lighting you want to use. 

Steps:

1. Determine the size of your LED strip light (in our case, we will use three feet wide and four feet long)
2. Now determine how many inches from each end you wish to cut off; usually, one inch is good.
3. Cut the strip in half along this line.
4. Save your cut-off pieces; you can use these to make a second blacklight space if desired.

Cut the LED Light Strip Into Desired Lengths

Steps:

1. Once you have determined how many inches from each end of an LED strip light you want to cut off, simply mark it on the strip with a pencil or pen.
2. Take your cut-off piece and line it back up against the LED strip light, marking where you need to make each connection.
3. Using wire strippers, remove one inch of insulation from all wires on both pieces being joined together.
4. Twist the exposed ends of these two LED strips so that the exposed copper wires are touching.
5. Now solder these exposed wires together, use your soldering iron to heat up both pieces of exposed wiring, and apply solder until you see it melt onto all exposed surfaces. – Be careful not to burn yourself or others! If small children are using this blacklight space, always supervise them while they are playing.
6. Repeat the above steps to connect all LED strips.

Connect the End of Each Length to a Power Supply With Wire Connectors or Solder

Steps:

1. Now that your LEDs are connected, we can prepare them for use and attach a power supply. We like using waterproof junction boxes. They make it easy to seal everything up once completed and provide protection from moisture or other potential hazards such as children or pets.
2. Take your LED strips and attach the end that does not have any exposed wire to one side of a junction box using hot glue, be careful when applying this as you do not want it getting stuck in the wrong place! If needed, use electrical tape at each connection point for added insulation and protection from moisture or other potential hazards.
3. Now take your power source (in this case, you can use a 12VDC transformer) and connect the positive wire to one side of the junction box again; use hot glue or electrical tape if needed for insulation/protection from moisture or other potential hazards.
4. Once you have attached both sides of the LED strip light to the junction box, you can then attach your power source positive wire to one side of a switch and the negative wire from the LED light strips to another.
5. Finally, take a length of electrical wire (we recommend using at least 14 gauge) and connect it from the last connection on your switch to an inlet or outlet, depending on how you want to use this LED black light space.

Cover Any Exposed Wires With Electrical Tape for Safety

Steps:

1. Now that you have your power source and switch in place take the exposed wires from each LED strip (that are sticking out of the junction box) and attach them using electrical tape or hot glue. You can also add additional wire if needed for added length so the LED strip light can reach the switch.
2. At this point, you should have LED strips inside your junction box, and they are all attached to a power source with a single wire coming off of that connection leading up to your switch.
3. Now take one cut end from each LED strip (the side without exposed wire) and attach them together, creating a loop.
4. Repeat the above steps until you have a single LED strip connecting all your LED strips together to create one large area of light for your blacklight space.

Install Lights in Desired Location to Create a Blacklight Effect

Steps:

1. Now that everything is wired up, it is time to seal this junction box and protect your wiring from damage or water infiltration.
2. You can take a small amount of silicone caulk and fill the junction box.
3. Be sure to apply enough to completely cover all openings between your wires, LED strip light connection points, and where you have used electrical tape or hot glue for added insulation/protection from moisture or other potential hazards.
4. Use electrical tape or hot glue to seal any exposed metal connections that may have been used for wiring.
5. You can also use caulk around the outside of your junction box if needed; this will help keep water out and protect all your hard work!

Now you are ready to plug in your LED blacklight space and enjoy!

When using your LED light strip for a black light space, you will want to ensure that the switch is turned on. This will cause all of the LED strips to turn on at once, which creates this really neat effect where it looks like there are hundreds of glowing stars in your room.

If you would like more control over how it looks, we recommend attaching a dimmer switch to the power source, which will allow you to adjust brightness and turn on/off individual LED strip lights.

How Blacklights Work

Black lights consist mostly of ultraviolet light, a light beyond the visible light range on the spectrum, more to the violet side. This is why you can’t see it even though you can feel its energy as heat. Specifically, black lights produce the lesser harmful UVA light.

Some things glow when under a black light. Such materials or substances are phosphors. When UV radiation hits them, they convert its energy to visible light, hence the glow. If you see your shirt or marker glowing in blacklight, it means it is a phosphor.

The most common phosphors shine in bright, neon colors such as orange, green and pink. White also glows in blacklight naturally. When you make a DIY black light, you can use any phosphor around you to test if it works effectively.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the questions people mostly ask concerning black lights. 

Why Does a Blacklight Make Things Glow? 

Black lights have invisible ultraviolet (UVA) light. On the other hand, there are substances known as phosphors. They turn radiation into visible light. Therefore, when UV radiation from a black light hits any phosphor material, it changes the energy from a black light into visible light.

What Glows with a Blacklight?

Any phosphor glows in black light. Examples of phosphors include tonic water, neon colors, fluorescent minerals, some bodily fluids, some vitamins, chlorophyll, and white paper. On the fun fact side, scorpions also glow under a black light.

Moreover, observing people under a black light makes us seem to have stripes called Blaschko’s lines.

Why is Blacklight Purple?

Black light is just a tag. Logically, there can’t be black light. The term refers to an energy band of purple light that is in the ultraviolet frequency part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The purple is a visible leakage the eyes perceive after the black light stimulates both blue and red receptors.

This explains why in the remote control method, we press both red and blue color buttons 25 times each.

What Can You Do With a Blacklight?

One popular use of black lights is during glow in the dark parties. This is where you use a range of neon-colored objects, costumes, decorations, or face paint that glows in the dark under certain lights. 

People love these types of parties because it deviates from the norm, and it’s very fun. They are also used as Halloween décor, to bring out that scary environment.

In other cases, law enforcement officers use blacklights to solve crimes. Blacklight can detect several materials in a crime scene like bodily fluids that glow under UV-A light. Additionally, authorities use it to authenticate banknotes, antiques, and old paintings worth millions.

In medicine, black lights detect conditions such as psoriasis and vitiligo. Besides, when an infant has jaundice, the pediatrician subjects him or her to UV therapy.

What’s the Difference Between UV Light and Blacklight?

To begin with, black light is a type of Ultraviolet light. The only difference is that a black light emits very little visible light while UV is totally invisible. With a black light, the subtle visible light present makes your eyes perceive it as ‘black’. If you use UV light only, the whole place will be totally dark.

Conclusion

Now that you know how to make a blacklight with LED light strips, feel free to try it out using any of the two methods discussed above. It is a simple and quick process you can do the next time you need a blacklight. Don’t forget to be careful and practical when connecting the strips to avoid voltage drops and other electrical issues.