Magnetic Locker Lights!

 

Many thanks and much credit go to user sockmaster for his excellent Magnetic Refrigerator Lights instructable, which was totally the inspiration for this one!

My daughter started middle school this year.  While we were at the orientation, I was sitting there, listening to the teachers drone on about all the rules the kids have to follow, the six of seven different behavior contracts they had to sign, and on and on.  It sure seems like there are more rules and regulations now, compared to when I was in school!

Anyway, I'd been trying to think of something awesome to do for her for back to school that would give me an excuse to enter the back to school contest here at instructables.  When the teachers started talking about proper use and care of the lockers (no stickers! magnets only!), the proverbial light bulb came on over my head . . . actually with me it's probably an LED, but that's beside the point.

I went out to the shop that night after the meeting and started tinkering.  What I came up with is a modular multiple board version of sockmaster's Magnetic Fridge Lights, the perfect thing for making your locker at least seven times more awesome than before, and without any stickers to scrape off at the end of the year!

If you make your own version of this, post a picture in the comments and I'll send you a digital patch.




Here's a quick demonstration of how they look:

Step 1: Gather Materials and Tools

Here's what you'll need for this project.  I got this stuff from a variety of sources, which I've listed where able.

For the lights:

• 10mm LEDs in a mix of colors (ebay)
• 330 ohm surface mount resistors (Norvac)
• 1/8" x 1/16" disc shaped neodymium magnets, 2 for each LED (amazingmagnets)

For the boards and connectors:

• One small magnetic dry erase board (dollar store)
• Several flat fridge magnets (culled from phone books, etc)
• Aluminum foil
• Neodymium magnets, either small magnets or broken bits of larger ones (dealextreme)
• Some wire
• 1/4" double sided tape (found in the sewing section at my local bi-mart)

For the power supply you will need one of but not both of these two options (see steps 5 and 6):

1.  Manually switched power supply:

• Light switch, switch plate, plastic conduit box (Home Depot)
• 4xAA battery holder and batteries (Norvac)
• 4 strong neodymium magnets (amazingmagnets)\

2.  Automatic power supply

• Perfboard
• 1 PNP transistor (any basic PNP will do)
• 1 1000 ohm resistor
• 1 strong neodymium magnet (amazingmagnets)
• 1 9 volt battery and clip
• A momentary on pushbutton switch (got mine out of an old CD player)
• Sugru

As to tools, you will need:

• Soldering iron
• Hot glue gun
• Epoxy
• Scissors
• Hobby Knife
• Multimeter

Comments

[falcotheimpaler]

Wish i had stuff like this back when i was in highschool. This is pretty bomb.

[depotdevoid]

Yeah, me too! Thanks falco!

[PatrickNormandin]

The result is awesome!

[depotdevoid]

Thanks Patrick!

[Wesley666]

I hear someone urinating for a long time in the video...

[depotdevoid]

Ha ha ha! No, that's my friend Rory messing around with his audio recorder. It's rain on the roof of his old house. Of course, now that you've mentioned it, it reminds me of that scene from the Naked Gun.