Bringing Old Bulbs to New Life

by Horatius.Steam

10.0K659

Intro: Bringing Old Bulbs to New Life

This is an easy and fast to do "How to".

Sometimes you see some nice looking, old fashioned bulbs but unfortunately they are burned out.
Don´t throw them away! Follow these "How to" to recycle them and use them for other nice LED or Steam-punk projects.

Mr Junophor gave me some nice but burned out bulbs. But what to do with them. Then I saw a nice project with a Light Box and I started to recycle these bulbs.

STEP 1: What You Need

  • Some nice bulbs
  • Some ultra bright LED´s (colour, what you like)
  • Some resistors (depending on the LED´s and the voltage you are using
  • A Dremel
  • Hard glue (like UHU hart)
  • A mask to protect your lungs from the dust
  • Protective glasses to protect your eyes

STEP 2: Preparing the Bulb


First of all you have to choose al bulb that has some room for a LED in the button. (Picture 1)
Use a dremel to cut the socket off. Wear the glasses and the mask! (Picture 2)
Put away the base. You can use it for other projects. (Picture 3)
Carefully remove the little glas tube and clean the socket from the ceramic material. Remember, protect yourself! (Picture 4, 5 and 6)
If the inner bulb becomes a bit dusty, don´t care about it. The dust will shine if the LED is on :-)

STEP 3: Mounting the LED

Now apply some glue (I used UHU hart) and attach the LED.
Make sure that the small space inside the bulb is filled with clear glue. (See picture 1)
Let the glue dry
Make sure, that the LED is aligned right up.

You can find similar on electfires instructable site

STEP 4: Let It Shine :-)

If the glue is hardened attach power via a resistor.

Now you have very nice looking bulbs for other Steam-punk projects,

Have fun!


Horatius Steam

9 Comments

fire_drakon117 12 years ago

Im going to make this with old auto bulbs. Will post pictures

BrefelanDesigns 12 years ago

Ha, Quite a coincidence... I did something similar for the indicator light on my C.F.L.E.D (Closely Focused Light Emitting Drill) ~really a laser... anyways cool that you took the time to make an instructable! Favorited!

Horatius.Steam 12 years ago

I don't mentioned that. sorry.

Thank you for the reply. I will link your C.F.L.E.D into my step by step :-)

H. Steam

Kiteman 12 years ago

That's a neat idea!

Aeon Junophor 12 years ago

Yeah!!
That´s great!

The right style!
I love it ;-)))
Yours Aeon Junophor