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Step 13Wiring
Wire up your LEDs before gluing it the rest of the way. Check them all on a 3 volt battery to be sure they light up. Push them all into the frame at once, making sure all of the positives are aligned. Bend the leads one direction (away from the battery area).
Every place that you solder pieces of wire together you need to twist them together neatly first. This is an inline splice, and you can find instructables devoted just to that if you want more info!
Solder one resistor onto the ground (negative) lead at every other LED. I think the best way to do this would be to wire two LEDs in serial on the resistor, but my LEDs wouldn't light up in serial so I did pairs in parallel. Solder on all of these resistors at once.
Next cut pieces of wire long enough to go from one LED to the end of the lead on the next. Solder these pieces on to the available ground leads. Again, do this all the way around.
Get your shrink tubing going - cut a piece a bit longer than the space from one LED to the next. Slide it on to the first ground lead, and heat it with the heat gun to shrink it.
Wrap the rest of this short wire around the next ground lead (with the resistor already soldered on). Reheat the solder a bit to connect all three.
Using a larger shrink tube cut a piece to go over this section, slide it over the resistor and heat it.
Repeat this until you run out of ground leads, but don't bother with the shrink tube on the very last one.
Cut one piece of wire long enough to go all the way around the inner ring plus enough for one more side (5 sides of the square). Starting at the first resistor lead, solder the lead to the wire. Shrink tube the length to the next resistor, and do it again. The idea is to get all of the grounds wired together to the very end.
Do the same thing on the positive side, but this is much easier. Cut a wire (the same length as the last), solder it to the first lead, shrink tube to the next lead, solder it to the next lead, and so on.
Once all of the LEDs are soldered in to the end you need to start working on the switch and battery snap.
Every place that you solder pieces of wire together you need to twist them together neatly first. This is an inline splice, and you can find instructables devoted just to that if you want more info!
Solder one resistor onto the ground (negative) lead at every other LED. I think the best way to do this would be to wire two LEDs in serial on the resistor, but my LEDs wouldn't light up in serial so I did pairs in parallel. Solder on all of these resistors at once.
Next cut pieces of wire long enough to go from one LED to the end of the lead on the next. Solder these pieces on to the available ground leads. Again, do this all the way around.
Get your shrink tubing going - cut a piece a bit longer than the space from one LED to the next. Slide it on to the first ground lead, and heat it with the heat gun to shrink it.
Wrap the rest of this short wire around the next ground lead (with the resistor already soldered on). Reheat the solder a bit to connect all three.
Using a larger shrink tube cut a piece to go over this section, slide it over the resistor and heat it.
Repeat this until you run out of ground leads, but don't bother with the shrink tube on the very last one.
Cut one piece of wire long enough to go all the way around the inner ring plus enough for one more side (5 sides of the square). Starting at the first resistor lead, solder the lead to the wire. Shrink tube the length to the next resistor, and do it again. The idea is to get all of the grounds wired together to the very end.
Do the same thing on the positive side, but this is much easier. Cut a wire (the same length as the last), solder it to the first lead, shrink tube to the next lead, solder it to the next lead, and so on.
Once all of the LEDs are soldered in to the end you need to start working on the switch and battery snap.
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