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"Dead" Battery Lamp

Step 4Constructing The Lamp

Constructing The Lamp
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Take the altoids tin, and mark out where you want the "stem" to be. Then poke some slits to allow for the heavy gauge wire and 2 wires to go through. Place the circuit in the tin and make sure it fits. Put the heavy gauge wire through the whole, along with the other 2 wires form the circuit. My heavy gauge wire had 3 internal strands, so i bent them out so its stable. Once you have your circuit placed correctly, hot glue it down, and cover the whole transistor, soldered part as strain relief and to prevent shorting. Then, pull a bit of wire back out of the hole in the lid so when you open the lid, it doesn't pull the wires. Push down the "flaps" from the hole around the wire to secure it, and then hot glue it. Now, close the lid and glue the "base" of the wires on the outside of the lid. Take your 2 thin wires, and hot glue them approx. every 1 in. along the heavy gauge wire (man it is getting old writing heavy gauge wire every time!) until you're at the top. The last soldering part is to twist your 2 LED's together, and trim and strip your 2 wires at the top of the heavy gauge wire. Solder the positive LED lead to the wire that was connected to the right side of the transistor (my red wire). Sloder the ground LED lead to the wire that was connected to the left side of the transistor, and the battery ground (my black wire). Then, wrap some electrical tape or heat shrink tubing around each lead and around the whole top part there, leaving the LED's exposed.
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1 comment
Nov 26, 2008. 10:38 AMDick Cappels says:
Can't find a toroid core? All you need to know:
http://72.41.86.92/dproj/ledpage/leddrv.htm
Nov 26, 2008. 11:17 AMyourcat says:
X-( I'm not understanding that too well... is it alternating between 0v and 3v so fast that it looks always on?
Nov 27, 2008. 8:05 AMyourcat says:
erm... I think you just mean higher voltage, because this sure isn't going to get you any more actual wattage...
Nov 27, 2008. 8:12 AMyourcat says:
Hold on, I said that with out thinking... you could get twice the wattage peak, but your only getting it half the time.

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