Halloween LED Eyes

After shopping around for decent, inexpensive LED eyes for Halloween decoration, and not finding any that were affordable, we decided to make some of our own.

The list of parts is fairly simple, and we had most of them lying around. The only things we had to buy were some resistors and some LEDs. Got those from the local Radio Shack, and the guy there (Thanks Chris!) gave some good advice on which resistors to use with which LEDs. We decided to go with the simple red LED eyes, and we used 643nm red T-1 3/4 1.8v LEDs. We used 220 Ohm 1/4 Watt Carbon Film resistors. We bought a couple of packages of 9v battery connectors as well. These parts all were really cheap, and we bought enough to make 20 pairs of eyes for about $12. The least expensive set of pre-made eyes we could find on the Internet were $30 for 5 pairs of eyes. Oh, and we also bought a bunch of 9v batteries from Big Lots. I had a bunch of wire in the garage (from who knows where) so I just used that. It looks to be 22ga stranded wire.

Step 1: Step 1 - Getting Everything Together.

Here’s the parts list for one pair of eyes.

3 – 10” pieces of wire

2 – LEDs (643nm red T-1 3/4 1.8v)

1 – Resistor (220 Ohm 1/4 Watt Carbon Film type)

1 – 9v Battery Connector

1 – piece of 3/16” 3:1 heatshrink tubing, 1 1/2" long

6 – pieces of 3/16” 3:1 heatshrink tubing, 3/4" long

1 – 6” long piece of 1 1/2” PVC pipe

Some solder and an iron

A heat gun

Wire cutters

Wire strippers

Bandages and Aloe. :)

Step 2: Step 2: Hooking Things Up.

Take one of the three 10" pieces of wire, and cut it in half. Strip 3/8” insulation off all 4 ends.

Take one of the resistors, and solder it to one end of each of the short pieces of wire.

Take the long piece of heatshrink tube and cover the resistor and solder connections.

Strip 3/8” of the insulation off all remaining 10” wires.

Step 3: Step 3: Hooking More Things Up...

Solder one of the ends of the resistor-wire combo you just made to the NEGATIVE lead of the battery connector. Heatshrink the connection.

Step 4: Step 4: More Stuff to Hook Up...

Take one of the 10” pieces of wire and solder one of ends to the POSITIVE lead of the battery connector. Heatshrink the connection.

Step 5: Step 5: Adding in the LEDs...

Take one of the LEDs, and solder the other end of the POSITIVE wire you just connected to the battery connector, to the POSITIVE lead of the first LED. Heatshrink the connection.

Take the remaining 10” piece of wire, and solder it to the NEGATIVE lead of the same LED. Heatshrink the connection.

Take the other end of the wire you just connected, and solder it to the POSITIVE lead of the second LED. Heatshrink the connection.

Take the NEGATIVE resistor-wire and solder it to the NEGATIVE lead of the second LED. Heatshrink the connection.

Step 6: Step 6: Finishing It Up...

You should end up with something that looks like this

Connect the 9v battery, and it should light up like this

Take the 6” piece of 1 1/2" PVC, and drill 2 - 3/16” holes in it, each of them 1” from the end of the pipe. These holes should be in the same plane along the long axis of the pipe, or you may not see the LEDs as well. Drill carefully, and deburr (clean out all the debris) the holes. Insert one of the LEDs into the hole from the inside of the pipe, and use a drop of superglue to hold it in place. Fish all the wires through the pipe, and insert the second LED into the other hole, securing it with a drop of superglue. This should leave the battery connector hanging out of one end of the PVC pipe. This will leave the connector hanging out so you can connect a 9v battery, which you can then stuff in the end of the pipe after you plug it in.

If you like, you can paint the pipe with Krylon Fusion flat black paint before you put the LEDs in the holes.

Hope you enjoy this Ible!