Almost every Steampunker has the same problem, to finance all the big projects in your head you must sit many hours on your desk to earn the money.
Often the office is dismal and grey. This is quietly no place for an awesome mind.
Now I invent this Desktop Terrarium who allows you to put your own exotic habitat on your desk. You can study rare plants in a perfect eye catcher setting.
And if you some weeks not in, no problem my habitat needs only a few drops of water every four month.

All you need is
- One old defect bulb (clear or matt)
- One solar power Garden LED light
- Small wooden board
- Brass or Copper tube
- Brass or Copper tin (wall clock)
- sundry brass parts
- Switch
- AAA Battery + holder

Also don't miss to visit my website with more great projects under Steampunk-Design.

Step 1: Prepare the Bulb

In the first step I prepare the bulb.

Attention! Please use gloves and a safety goggles…
The bulbs are very thin and there is a high risk that they broke during work.
Try to work in front of a vacuum cleaner because this will avoid that small cullet spread over the area you work in.

In the middle of the socket is a small metal plate you can lift it and pull out with a small knife.
If you remove the plate you will find a small hole in the black glass seal.
Stick a small screwdriver in this hole and break the glass. Now you can also remove it.
Now you see a small glass tube which holds the filament.
With a small plier you can also break the tube and remove all.
After this you make the hole round and enlarge it a little bit.
The glass breaks not complete because it can only brake until the glued socket.
Now you can clean the bulb with water.
You see on my pictures that I use a matt bulb. The matt colour is only a fine powder that can easily wash away with water.

Step 2: Solar Power Light

For the automatically night light I use a solar garden light.
This is the easiest way because you only need to dissemble it and make some wires longer and finally mounting all in the bulb and base tin.

Remove all screws and get the circuit with the LED out of the housing.
Cut the wires to from the solar panel to the circuit.
Cut with a cutting wheel from the Dremel the solar panel out.
Solder out the LED and solder two long wires on.
Later the circuit is placed in the base tin with the switch and battery and the LED wires goes through the brass tube to the bulb.

Drill two holes into the tin then fit the switch in one and take the wires for the solar panel out.
Take care with duct tape that no parts of the circuit has contact to the brass parts!
If you have checked all parts again you can switch the power on.
When you hold your hand above the solar panel it must switch on the light.
When the solar panel is in the light it will charge the battery.

Very important:
To bend the small brass tubes is necessary to filled it with sand!
Only if your pipes filled with fine sand you can bent the brass tubes, otherwise you pipe kink directly and is destroyed.

I filled the tubes with bird sand and sealed at the ends with electrical tape.
Then I use a brake pipe tool from Hazet (Art. Nr. 2193-1) the bent the radius.

The last picture show you an only battery powered version with a CR2032 cell.

Step 3: Chassis

For the chassis you can use everything you find in your workshop let your mind play and create something beautifully.

At last I add some pictures of my different versions.
You are free to copy it.

Have fun with this weekend project and stay tuned on my website. I will launch an English version shortly.

Step 4: Filling

Some of you ask for the filling of the bulb.
My first Terrarium is filled with orchidaceous flower soil, white stones and moss out of the forest.
Moss is ideal for this application because it work like an anti fungal. That means if the glass is humid in the sun you get no mildew.

Another bulb is filled with fine black sand and a carapace from a prawn.

Currently I work on a very big bulb (500 Watt) I try to put sea monkeys in.