Mini Christmas Tree (With Lights!)

This mini Christmas tree is perfect to add holiday spirit to any desk and could also make a good gift (At least I hope so! I plan to make more and give one to my brother and one of my LED obsessed friends). It can be made using scrap materials from other projects, and is really easy to put together.

I made this because I wanted a Christmas decoration for my desk. I searched the site, and none of the projects had exactly what I wanted. There was an LED Christmas Tree, but it was too tech looking. Keith-Kid also had a cool looking tree, but it didn't have any lights at all (and it wasn't green). My tree is sort of a mix between the other ones.

Feedback is always welcome, and your Vote in the decoration contest (or the Gift contest) would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you, and enjoy!

Step 1 Materials

This is a pretty easy project to make so you don't need that many materials. I had a lot of these lying around unused. Even if you didn't have them lying around it would be easy to salvage from other projects.

MATERIALS

A lot of Green Pipe Cleaners (I had a lot of these sitting around from old crafts. I think I ended up using like 10, but it's better to have more rather than less)

1 Cone Shaped cup (Like a snow cone cup)

1 Base (As you saw in the first step, I used a car wax lid. It ended up looking pretty nice)

3 Green (or Bi-Color) LEDs (I used Bi-Color just because I had them left over from a mood light project. Green would work just as well)

3 68 Ohm Resistors

3 22 Ohm Resistors

3 Red LEDs

1 2 AA Battery Pack (You could make your own with electrical tape, but I had a few lying around)

1 Switch *Not Pictured* (This isn't totally necessary, but it makes it easier to turn on and off.)

Some Wire

TOOLS

Hot Glue Gun

Soldering Iron and Solder

Wire Cutters

Wire Strippers

Comments

[raykholo]

why do u need resistors if ur running the leds off of 3 volts?

[Gjdj3]

It helps to increase the life of the LED. The LEDs are rated under 3 volts, so even though they technically could run off 3 without resistors they wouldn't last very long.

[raykholo]

good idea however, arent standard leds rated to go 100,000 hours on 3 volts? i dont think youll need more than that

[starrymirth]

Don't forget that often it is current that destroys components, not only voltage.
We call them "current-limiting resistors" in our physics course, for that reason.

The LED's doesn't have much impedance/resistance, and so even if the voltage isn't so high the current could be over the LED's comfort zone.

(And from personal experience, you don't really want to burn them out - they don't smell very good at all...)

[raykholo]

An electronics-filled year and a half later. I've figured that out by now :) And I'm now designing my own embedded electronic systems, all with proper resistors in series with my LED's. :) Still, thanks for taking the time to comment, I'll be sure to pass your words on to any beginners I come across.

[starrymirth]

Ah, well then you know it all already, and probably more than me.

My boyfriend is really the electronics designer in the house, I just love the soldering part (I'm his cheap labour for assembling his latest creations...)

[ptncm99]

Does anybody know a way to plug in your lights? I'm sure there has got to be a way to reduce the amount of electricity to safely run a ton of these LEDs.

[Gjdj3]

I think theres an instructable published pretty recently about running LEDs off of AC.

[ptncm99]

Without always having to rely on batteries that is....

[watermelonhead]

cool, i like the lights on the tree. : ]

[Gjdj3]

Thanks! Your vote would be greatly appreciated if you liked it.

[watermelonhead]

i already voted, this is really cool. hope you win! :]

[BalintRules]

You said you don't need a lot of materials.

[Gjdj3]

I don't think that it really is that many compared to other projects. The packaging is a lot of the size.

[ChrysN]

What a sweet little tree, neat idea!

[Gjdj3]

Thanks!