Model Rocket LED Glow Effects

This is my entry into the Let it Glow Contest. If you like it, please vote.

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Now that school, and therefore finals, are done I can finally finish this Instructable. It has been waiting to be completed for about a month now but I've been so busy with other things that I waited till the last hour to finish this Instrcutable and enter it in to the contest.

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Model rockets are cool and lots of fun. The same applies to LED's and other simple electronics. So you now wonder, why not combine the two. Well, here I will combine the two, and also feed everyone's secret addiction to fire (you know it's true) by adding LED Glow effects to a high flying model rocket.

Step 1: Gather Materials

To do this, you will need:

• Model rocket
• 3 10mm LED's (colors may vary)
• 3 3032 coin cell batteries
• Wire
• Soldering supplies
• Hot glue gun
• Hot glue sticks
• Electrical tape
• Exacto knife
• Razor blade (unless you want to cover your Exacto with hot glue)
• Small saw (optional)
• File (helpful)
• Mini butane blowtorch (or jet (windproof) lighter)

Comments

[Lotus14]

Very cool, i liked it a lot. Keep it up!

[benjamin1254]

you could have went with a 2 part plastic mix that makes a clear "cast" of anything you set it in.... drill into it a bit to set the leds to make sure its a good fit... and to make sure it would be clear all you would need to do is b4 perminitly setting the LEDs in place you would use a clear coat of finger nail polish. It helps to know these things when doing mods ^_... btw using hot glue could be useful on the desent back to the ground because it is a rubber type substance.

[benjamin1254]

i would have rather used an ultra bright blue LED at the tip so it could be seen going up @ night along with the side blue lights.... nice mod btw im impressed so faR!

[eng_johny]

its a good job , but i want to know the device that give the thurst firce to the rocket to launch , and where i can buy it ? thanks johny

[marc92]

That would be a model rocket motor. They can be found at hobby stores, or sometimes in the toy section of Walmart. Best of luck!

[aka_daryl]

great instructabe, by the way what type of rocket is that i would like to buy one to try this?

[marc92]

Thanks! I think it was an Estes rocket, Shuttle Xpress, to be exact.

[TheDeviant13]

I am going to try something similar to this with the Estes customizer set except making it so I could put it in the clear payload section of the model and another idea that you could try is to get a cheap and light weight green laser pointer and somehow rig it to the model rocket so if you fly it at night you could follow the laser beam to find the rocket while it is in the air or on the ground after it comes back down.

[marc92]

Good luck. The laser pointer is a great idea too.

[aka_daryl]

yea i have loads of old CD drives it wouldn't be hard to salvage the laser i supose

[DELETED_evilfrogie]

(removed by author or community request)

[aka_daryl]

the red laser in a regular CD drive can be seen by the naked eye

[kanamin]

OH MY GOD I think I used to have that rocket, gone now. Ahh childhood D:

[temp]

someone is going to be like "Holy guacamole it's a UFO!"

[piee]

what is the function of the benz0matic lighter????? and how you launch the rocket huh????? can u explain more to me how to launch the rocket thanx..... i hope u will k

[marc92]

The large (blue) propane is not used, but it was photographed because I tried it as a method of remelting the hot glue to make it look smooth. To launch the rocket, follow the instructions in the paperwork that came with the rocket. If you don't have that paperwork, reply, and I will post a picture of them for you.

[piee]

can u post to me the paperwork and the .... yhe important is where can i get the rocket engine.....

[falcotheimpaler]

wow. makes me wish i still had model rockets.

[DJTOONJR]

where did u get the LED lights at though? i like wantmore cuz i(for some reason) put lights on my backpack..idk why.. i was just rwally bored lol... and i would like to know where to get em..

[marc92]

LED's can be purchased at Radio Shack, on eBay, or where the ones used here came from, http://www.phenoptix.co.uk/.

[DJTOONJR]

lol i had this rocket... came wit 2 little planes on the side as well.. only thing is dat the first day i launched it, it landed in someones roof and never got it bak ahah

[marc92]

Mine also came with two planes, but I opted not to launch them because recovering them at night would have been challenging.

[Ian01]

5, 3, 2, 1. Four sounds too similar to "FIRE!" which is only said/shouted if something that shouldn't be is on fire, e.g. the grass.

[marc92]

Good point. People, (unlike me,) that are seriously involved with rocketry should heed this warning. Also be careful with five.

[somebullcrap]

five sounds like fire .not four .i don't ask to be rude but do you have a speech impediment?

[marc92]

Accents can vary causing both five and four to sound like "FIRE." Say "five" and "four" with all the accents you can think of, e.g. Boston, Southern, Canadian, etc. Most likely you will find that five and four can both sound like "FIRE."

[Xerillum]

My opinion is that it should go threetwooneboooom. Just my opinion though.

[marc92]

That works too :-)

[Loveofchaos]

could you add some LED throwies so that once the parachute deployer charge goes off, some LEDs come out making it a safe... cool looking (not very cheap) firework...... more like electrowork =p

[marc92]

Great idea! Maybe I'll try it.

[LinuxH4x0r]

Nice! (although i'd probably use rechargeable batteries)

[marc92]

Good idea!

[mattgatten]

Way cool. I've been wanting to do this with a few of my 'hot rod' R/C cars and racing planes. There are a buttload of 10mm LED's for cheap, cheap on 'The Bay'. Here's a highly filtered list of them. Enjoy.<br/><br/><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?type=4&campid=5335985173&toolid=10001&customid=10mmLEDs&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebay.com%2Fsearch%2Fsearch.dll%3Fsofocus%3Dbs%26sbrftog%3D1%26dfsp%3D3%26from%3DR40%26satitle%3D%252850L6%252C%2B12AX7%252C%2B6DG6GT%2529%2Btube%2B-%2528pedal%252C%2BPreamp%2529%26sacat%3D-1%2526catref%253DC6%26sargn%3D-1%2526saslc%253D2%26sadis%3D200%26fpos%3D62269%26sabfmts%3D1%26ftrt%3D1%26ftrv%3D1%26saprclo%3D%26saprchi%3D%26fsop%3D3%2526fsoo%253D2%26fgtp%3D">10mm diffused LED's on Ebay</a><br/>

[marc92]

Cool! Post some pictures if you do

[macwhiz]

I have the same rocket! :) Ha Ha!

[marc92]

Cool. Are you going to try this?

[macwhiz]

maybe

[Yoooder]

How hard would it be to make these blink? If you could get them to blink at a constant rate it would be cool to record with a high-speed camera to get acceleration/speed. Maybe it's too much work, but I think it would make an awesome science-class experiment :)

[marc92]

Great idea! I'm not an expert with IC's but I know that you would use a 555 timer. I just don't know how to set it up. I bet if you Google'd it you could find plenty of information, and I don't think it would be that difficult to do.

[jamilili]

Pretty stellar! Most impressive!