Miss Betsy's Dragonfly Pin

For a concert I needed something fitting and matching my wardrobe. Inspired by articles from Kaivin and MrSanchez, I started working on my illuminated "Dragonfly pin".
All in all it took me about 2 afternoons on a weekend and after a long break I can offer you finally a new instructable!

The work was split in 2 parts. First the assembly of the "electronics" = LED lights and on then creating the "Dragonfly".

Materials needed or rather stuff I used:

2 red LEDs
3 small batteries, I used type 312 with 1.2V and 160 mAh
1 switch
wire

1 2" long piece of 1/2" copper pipe
copper wire ~14/16 ga.
beads
mesh or other material for the wings

Tools you should have and which will make completion of this project a lot easier -_^

Hacksaw
Pipe cutter
Pliers
Soldering iron
Different glues
Ruler / Tape measure
Scissors

I might not have mentioned all and everything but it depends also how close you stay to my instructable and how far you want to go with your own.

Step 1: Assembling the "Electronics"

I had the idea for this fashion accessory when i found a lighter with a little flashlight built in. The only important part was the battery holder for 3 button cells. I also found a couple of LEDs and a little switch in my "parts and pieces" drawer. Little wires are not hard to find anyway.
I did some calculating and everything should work out fine without the need of a resistor. I just assumed that I grabbed the average LED with ~3.1V and about 20mA, so 3 batteries with 1.2V each would add up to 3.6 which is not too much for the LEDs and according to the data sheet 1 battery should be good for 160mAh or about 4 hours continuous work, right? (I know I will hear from you if I got it wrong.)
The whole thing was done in less than an hour so I moved on to creating the body.

Please use this for your own creation: LED calculator

Comments

[sunshiine]

This is beautiful!

[Monsterguy]

I make jewellery and I tinker with electronics...why on earth has it never occured to me to combine the two!?!

Thanks for the inspiration :)

[MissBetsy]

Thank you very much but I took my inspiration from other members of this great community just as much. o_O

[arokleto]

wow..
awesome...

[soundmotor]

I like it. Nice work MissBetsy. This would be a great project to do with a child. Plenty of hand operations they could do to help build it.

[MissBetsy]

Absolutely! Maybe I should become a "hands on" instructables teacher ^_o
I can already imagine the kids singeing each other with the blow torch or using lasers for the eyes. (Just kidding!!!)

[Winged Fist]

What a wonderful pin! And great to see you posting a new instructable! Since it's a lucky day, and the star rating feature is working - 5 stars!;-)

[MissBetsy]

You flatter me, but thank you very much!
There should be at least another instructable follow in the next weeks. o_o