u/saylamarz

I'm a luthier and I'm trying to make some small interior lights for instruments. Basically it's a small strip of LEDs that slide in through the F hole so I can better illuminate the interior.

Here's an example that a friend has in her shop. Unfortunately she's had it so long she can't recall where it came from.

Example Strip .....it's not obvious in the photo but the strip is folded over so it gets light in the back too

I'm trying to make myself a handful of similar lights, in different lengths, for different size instruments (this length gets in the way in a violin, but doesn't light the entirety of a cello).

I managed to make myself one prototype out of a Paulmann SimpleLED kit, but it meant cutting off about 1.49 meters of LED strip to use just 10 cm...and now I can't find a good solution for connecting the rest of the strip....at least among the materials I can find in Europe at small scale. Part of that may be that I can't figure out my search terms.

Does anyone have a good supplier in France or Europe for ....? (No Amazon, please)

1. the intermediary wire LED strip connector / adaptors (probably soldered connection, as slim format is important to fit through the FFs; I'd like to be able to choose a longer wire here, as once I hit the cord-to-cord adapter, it won't fit into the FFs)
2. the plugging DC adapter on the power side if it's not built into the cord above (it would be very helpful if I could connect it to USB or USB-C power rather than a wall power outlet)
3. thin, clear tubing to hold the LED strip folded (maybe shrinkble?)
4. thin, shrinkable tubing to smooth over the soldered connection
5. the DC power element that connects with #2 (if I can't just use a USB / USB-C brick)

Bonus points if I can re-use the excess strip from the Paulmann SimpleLED kit, but I realize the kit may not be made to avoid waste.

Here's what I managed to make at home with the kit:

The pre-fab kit connector doesn't add any thickness, but the cord is very short, and the rubberized LED strips are already pretty thick

I used the backing to tape the folded strip to itself, but it's not holding its glue – so I need to super glue it or slip it into a sleeve to hold the fold.

https://preview.redd.it/f9ej2fbp3yvg1.jpg?width=2364&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=29c254d3e765954f28a36db322636070a8bf310b

It works well enough as a one-off, but I do not want to spend 15 EUR and waste meters of material for every one of these that I need!

I want to create these in a way that isn't terribly expensive, but will hold up for years.

If anyone can help me with the appropriate terms, and point me to a good place to buy these parts in Europe (not Amazon) I would really appreciate it.