Electronic Candle Noisemaker

A while ago I read on Get LoFi that you can "listen" to an electronic flickering candle by attaching a speaker to the LED. I decided to try this, so I went out and bought two packs of electronic flickering candles. Just attaching a speaker to the candle did not do anything but short it out, but I realized I could make a photocoupler by putting a photocell in front of the flickering LED. By doing to this to two (or more) candles and attaching them all to an output jack, it's pretty easy to make a cool electronic noisemaker. Each candle (even ones of the same make) is slightly different, so you will get different sounds from all of them.

Step 1 Materials

You will need:
Electronic flickering candles, about $3 each from a hardware or department store
Photocells, one per candle
Toggle switches, one per candle plus one for power
Nine volt battery and holder
Speaker or output jack
Alligator clips, for testing
Enclosure, I used a junction box
Heatshrink tubing

Comments

[Jack A Lopez]

I have done something similar to this, i.e. using a light sensitive transducer, specifically a small piece of silicon solar cell,  to listen to the signal of a flickering light - as sound.  Here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Listen-to-Light/

The amplifier module helps a lot.  With the setup I am using there is no need to put the light source and sensor in intimate contact inside a light tight box.  Just a few cm of distance between the light source and the sensor is usually close enough to get a clear, audible, signal.

[Fenwick]

Those candle things look really fun to take apart and experiment with.

The fact that they all produce different tones makes me suspect that they have a lot of analog circuitry to them. I'm gonna try and pick some up tomorrow and see what they've got inside them.

[Fenwick]

Okay, it turns out all the circuitry in mine was All inside the LED, so I couldn't get at it and take a signal at all.

[noahh]

I don't know how well you read the tutorial, but mine was just the LED and a battery. You get the sound by attaching a photocell to it. It's all in the instructable.

[Fenwick]

I read how you did it, I was just trying to figure out if there was another way, or anything that could be done to modify the electronics that generate the pulses.

[nof-z]

pretty cool