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Step 6The Electronics
If you are omitting the electronics in this project, skip to the next step.
Take all your LEDs and test them for polarity. Solder a black-wire lead to the negative terminals, and a plain lead to the positive terminals. Or whatever helps you remember their polarity. The leads should be about four inches long.
I hot-glued the lead joints to make them sturdy.
Next, hot glue the LEDs to the inside of their corresponding barrels, to help them stay in place and point down the barrel.
Then wrap two separate rings of copper around the arm-pipe near the LEDs. It helps to have a perfectly circular cut of copper wire, slightly smaller than the arm-pipe. This way, they will "hug" the pipe and not move very much. Call one ring the "positive node" and the other "negative node."
In hindsight, braided copper strands of the same gauge would have worked much better, to make the soldering easier and the connections in the solder joints would remain more stable.
As it is, I wrapped each LED lead around its corresponding node and back onto itself, tightly, and soldered it that way. It works, mostly. :-)
I positioned the laser in the top barrel (the one under which the trigger leads come out of the handle). Interesting that it takes the same voltage as these LEDs, no?
Take all your LEDs and test them for polarity. Solder a black-wire lead to the negative terminals, and a plain lead to the positive terminals. Or whatever helps you remember their polarity. The leads should be about four inches long.
I hot-glued the lead joints to make them sturdy.
Next, hot glue the LEDs to the inside of their corresponding barrels, to help them stay in place and point down the barrel.
Then wrap two separate rings of copper around the arm-pipe near the LEDs. It helps to have a perfectly circular cut of copper wire, slightly smaller than the arm-pipe. This way, they will "hug" the pipe and not move very much. Call one ring the "positive node" and the other "negative node."
In hindsight, braided copper strands of the same gauge would have worked much better, to make the soldering easier and the connections in the solder joints would remain more stable.
As it is, I wrapped each LED lead around its corresponding node and back onto itself, tightly, and soldered it that way. It works, mostly. :-)
I positioned the laser in the top barrel (the one under which the trigger leads come out of the handle). Interesting that it takes the same voltage as these LEDs, no?
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