I made my own ringlight a little over a month ago, and I am just now starting to ussse it. haha. It measures 2 1/2 feet wide in order to not only easily shoot through it, but also be able to get better light coverage around your subject. I used Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs instead of floodlights or regular light bulbs, to not only cut down on power consumption (130 watts for 10 bulbs vs. 1200 watts with flood lights) but to also make sure its not too hot for the person modeling. Also, The CFLs that I bought are closer to a color-corrected light and isnt as much of a 'warm' tone than other bulbs.

I installed a switch to make it easier to save power when I'm not taking a photo (and don't have to unplug it in everytime)
I also cut an extension cord end to attach all of the wires to, it worked out great.

I wish I had more pictures of the actual 'making' it part.  
But each fixture is mounted on roughly a 1x4 block of wood to be able to mount them sturdily...each block had a hole cut through the middle for the wires to pass through.


My brother and I also built a mount for it to sit on top
of the speaker stand I purchased (the speaker stand works perfectly)

As you can see from this picture, On both the inside and outside edges of the ringlight, I attached siding to protect the wires and make it look cleaner (its actually brown siding used for the lawn that I just spray painted black)...the back is easily able to be detached if wires come loose (the were all soldered, shouldnt) or if need to be worked on.


The outcome...?
A face free of shadows due to the fact that lighting is coming from the front and sides, instead of using a camera-mounted flash where the lighting only comes from the front(unless bounced), and would cause shadows.