ChapStick LED Flashlight

Step 3 Completing the top section

Cut the spring from the "N" battery holder (leaving the plastic portion it's attached to intact), and cut a 1/4" section from the bottom portion of the ChapStick. Insert the 1/4" section into the bottom of the platform, (this will help to make the base of the spring more stable. Slide the positive lead of the LED through the center of the spring, solder it to the base of the spring and then clip any remaining portion of the lead off.

Comments

[brandon20904]

I've been eyeing this concept but never made it. Or replace the LED with a laser diode and use it as a laser.

[ewertz]

For a super low-wattage laser, you might be able to get away with it. But if you're thinking about any laser more powerful than the one you use to play with the cat (~1-2 mW), it's a bad idea. The problem is that lasers run hot, and never again after a certain point. Even the El Cheapo Brand laser pointers that you buy that the drugstore have the laser diode mounted on something that acts as a heatsink, often directly to the metal casing, or one conductive seam away from it. If you don't heat-sink the laser diode, it fries or has its lifespan severely curtailed. Given that the chapstick container is itself a crappy heatsink, any even-minimally-interesting laser diode is probably only a few seconds/minutes away from death at full/typical power unless you stick it on something to suck the heat off of it. The issues are the same with any LED. You really want to keep them from getting too hot.

[Grey_Wolfe]

DVD diode? Super tiny laser cutter? That would be cool, might be hard to minimize the power/control needs to that small. But it gives a new goal to the laser cutter modders.