Ryobi 18v Battery Shed Lighting System, USB 5v – Off Grid Lighting for Your Shed Using Ryobi Batteries, Quick and Easy With No Soldering Required!

Have a shed or anywhere else inside our outside your house with no power that needs lighting inside? This project is for you then it powers the lighting off of Ryobi 18v batteries which give you the ability to easily swap them out! To make it even easier there is no soldering required for this project and it only needs very basic tools. The batteries can be gotten for quite cheap during sales and provide pretty good capacity for the cost. Even better if you already have some of them lying around now you can reuse them for anything you want. So lets dive right in and get this project started!

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Supplies

Here is a complete list of Supplies & Tools you will need. They are not all the same supplies I used but should be similar or better replacements.

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Ryobi 18v Battery Connector – (This has both a fuse and switch which is highly convenient and saves extra steps of adding your own.)
12-24v Step Down to 5v 10A Voltage Regulator Converter – (10A is probably overkill but it gives it an extra amperage buffer of 50w total and has screw terminals.)
2x Mountable USB Female Port Power Only – (This gives you two USB female cables so you can plug anything USB into the other end and they have screw holes letting you easily mount them onto something.)
4x USB Switched Light Bulbs – (These lights work very well, are easy to work with, and very bright for only using 5w.)
Two Gang Electrical Box- ( Any two gang or two outlet electrical box should work as long as its normal depth.)
Single Pole Light Switch Rocker – (You could also use a standard style switch instead of the rocker style.)
Some 20 Gauge or Lower Wire– (If you don’t have any wire available this is a cheap listing for 10ft of 20 gauge which while low should be enough for up to 5 amps which is 25W max at 5V. If you want to run higher amps use a lower gauge wire such as 16AWG for 10A or you can triple up on the 20 Gauge wire.)

Tools

Optional: Quick Wire Stripper – (Not required but saves time when stripping wires.)
Wire Stripper & Crimper – (We just need a wire stripper for this or a razor blade/knife also would work.)
Single Philips #2 Screwdriver – (Just a single screwdriver which will work for this whole project.)
Multi-bit Screwdriver – (Multiple bit screwdriver so you have more for future projects.)
All in One Screwdriver and Wire Stripper – (If you don’t already have a wire stripper and screwdriver this one tool has both.)
Wire Stripper and Screw Drivers Kit – (This comes with both a wire stripper, two screw drivers, and a utility knife.)
Optional: Auto-Ranging Multimeter - (This is a similar style to the one I am using, any multimeter you have should work. If you don't have one this is not required it is just used for testing but it is a good idea to always test it.)
Ryobi Hot Glue Gun Mini – (This is the one I used the mini glue sticks seem to hold better then some of the normal ones. Requires a Ryobi 18v Battery and the glue sticks are sold separately, these gorilla glue sticks would be a good choice.)
Normal Glue Gun – (This Surebonder is the one I used to use before I got the Ryobi Glue Guns.)

Step 1: Strip Wires

First strip the ends of both the wires on the Ryobi Battery Connector.

Step 2: Screw in Ryobi Battery Connector

Now loosen the screws on the 12-24v to 5v Step Down Voltage Regulator and insert the red positive wire to the + on the input side of the regulator and the black negative line onto the – of the input side of the regulator and screw them both into place. If you bought the same one I did the Input is on the left side and goes (+) (-).

Step 3: Screw in 5v Step Down Voltage Regulator

Now screw in the 5v USB Female Ports red positive wire to the + of the Output side of the Voltage Regulator and the black negative wire to the – of the Voltage Regulator and screw them both down. If you bought the same one I did the Output is on the right side and goes (-) (+). The USB ports I went with come already stripped on the ends.

Step 4: Testing Voltages

Optional but it is always a good idea to make sure nothing went wrong before plugging in your USB device. Use the voltage tester to test the Ryobi Battery Connector side and the 5v Output of the Voltage Regulator side. A fully charged Ryobi 18v Battery Should be around 19-20v mine is 19.59v. The 5v USB side should be 5v or really close to it mine is 5.03v which is excellent.

Step 5: Break Tab on the Outlet Box

Now break out one of the wire tabs in the double outlet box, this is where we will be putting the female USB port to plug the lights into. The easiest way is to move it up and down repeatedly until it gets a crack and then you can just twist it off by hand or with pliers if its really stubborn.

Step 6: Test Fitting

Now is a good time to do a test fit before we proceed and glue parts into place. I went for the Ryobi battery connector on the left of the switch. Make sure everything fits inside including the 5v Regulator. For this project I wont be using the switch that came with the Ryobi battery connector so I will be tucking that in behind everything too in the on position. I left it attached as it also has the fuse in it.

Step 7: Screw in Positive Wire to Light Switch

Now screw in the positive red wire from the Ryobi battery connector into the light switch.

Step 8: Cut & Strip Wire

I used some wire from an old power cable from a broken DVD player I think it was or you could use a broken extension cords cable as well. Really you could use just about any scrap wire for this as it is only carrying 5v and I will be only using about 10w. We only need one small piece of wire to go from the switch to the 5v Regulator.

Step 9: Screw Wire Into Switch & 5v Regulator

Now screw the wire you just cut into the light switch and the 5v regulator in the positive input side, which on mine is the far left screw terminal.

Step 10: Insert Parts & Screw in the Light Switch

Fit everything inside the double outlet box where you want them to be attached and then screw in the light switch partway. We may have to remove it one more time when gluing later.

Step 11: Hot Glue Ryobi Battery Connector & USB Port in Place

Now glue the Ryobi battery connector into place and the USB port. I did just a little around the edge in the pictures but did come back after and put a lot more glue filling the corner of the double outlet box. I put enough to firmly hold the battery connector stem in place. The little bit from these pictures wasn’t enough to hold the weight of the battery. Using a better adhesive such as epoxy might work better as well but how glue is cheap and easy to use so I didn’t mind just using a lot of it.

Step 12: Plug the USB LED Lights Into USB Y Splitter

The lights I used come with their own USB Y-Splitter cable and so we will now plug it in to the port. You could also use an old USB hub even an old USB 1 hub would work fine since all we are using is the power so speed doesn’t matter. If you don’t want to use a splitter you could also use two female USB Ports instead of one.

Step 13: Testing Lights

Time to test everything before we install it to make sure its all working. I also positioned the light switch so up would be on and down would be off which is standard.

Step 14: Staple Wires in Place

Since we have tested it and everything is working now its time to install it. Find a good place and carefully hammer it into place, be careful not to hit anything but the nail or it could break. I moved the whole box location after these pictures as it stuck out to far so it would catch on things leaving the or arms as you left the shed, so be sure to plan ahead for that. You can see the pictures of where it moved to at the end of this step. Then run the wire holding it in place and using the staple gun, if your staple gun doesn’t have a wire guide be very careful not to puncture the cable.

Step 15: Done, Installed in Shed

Here are some pictures of everything fully installed in the shed. The lighting is currently only above the door, in the future I may get another USB Y-Splitter and a 10ft USB extension cable and two more USB lights and run it to the back of the shed as well. This gave much needed light on overcast days, early mornings, and night whenever I needed do get various yard tools from the shed. A Ryobi 4 Ah Battery should give you around 7 hours of non stop use as the USB lights draw 5w each, so 10w total with the two, and the 4Ah battery is 72w max. I only have it on for a few minutes at a time while I am in the shed and turn it off when I leave so a single battery lasts well over a month. I think its generally every 3 months or so I swap the battery with a fully charged one. Be sure to firmly press the battery releases on both sides of the battery before trying to remove it from the socket. The later pictures are where I moved the switch to which is a much better place.

Step 16: Other Ideas and Options

This system will work for more then just Ryobi 18v Batteries and can easily be modified to fit many other power tool battery systems. You could easily have it work for any 12v, 18v, 20v, or 24v power tool batteries depending on what 5v Voltage Regulator you get. As long as the fully charged battery input is below the 24v max the Voltage Regulator used it should be able to handle it. If you want to use another power tool battery instead of Ryobi simply type in the brand of your power tool plus battery connector into amazon here. That link will take you right to a search of power tool battery connectors on Amazon. You can see them for all sorts of brands such as DeWalt, Milwaukee, Porter Cable, Kobalt, Black & Decker, etc. That's just from the first page, there are a lot more brands too, and it doesn't matter if its a stem type or rail type battery, there is almost always an adapter you can find. So any type of power tool battery, just about, that you have already or can get for cheap could be used and can be used with your 5v projects.

Upgrade Idea: In the future I might get another Y-USB splitter, 10ft USB Extension cable, and 2 more lights then use it to run two more lights to the back of the shed as well. That would light up everything instead of just the entrance but for now this is working quite well and that end of the shed needs some deep cleaning first or I would have done it at the same time.