Introduction: Cheap Glow Key Fob

This Instructable will teach you how to make a cheap glow key fob than can easily attach to your key chain.

Step 1: Gather Your Materials / Supplies

All the supplies for this glow key fob cost less than $5. Here's what you'll need.

• Small 1-2" piece of 1/4" dishwasher tubing (picked 3 rolls up at my local hardware store on clearance for $0.99 each)

• Glow-in-the-dark paint ($1 at local craft store)

• Heat shrink tubing ($1 for assorted pieces at Harbor Freight Tools)

• Hot glue and glue gun

• Knife

• Scissors

• Screw Eye (salvaged mine from old toy)

• Lighter / Heat source (to shrink the heat shrink tubing)

Step 2: Paint the Inside of the Dishwasher Tube

Using a small paint brush, paint the inside of your piece of tube. Try not to paint 1/8" - 1/4" from the end so the hot glue has somewhere to stick. This method doesn't paint the entire piece, making it not glow in some spots.

So I did this instead:

I held the paint bottle tip firmly against the end of the tube, then squeezed paint through the tube until it almost came out of the bottom. Then I placed the paint down on my desk and took the cap off, got a straw, put the straw up to the end of the tube and blew the paint from the tube back into the paint bottle. I then used a q-tip to clean the ends of the tube so the hot glue could stick to it, and cleaned up the outside with a tissue.

Step 3: Hot Glue One End

Plug in your hot glue gun and wait until it gets hot enough to melt the glue. Once it's hot enough, seal off one end of your tube with glue, then, while the glue is still hot and liquid, press your screw eye into that end. Once the glue cools, unscrew your screw eye.

the seal doesn't need to be perfect because once it dries nothing is going to happen unless water gets inside the key fob.

Step 4: Seal the Other End

Use a pin / needle to poke a hole all the way through the spot where the screw eye was. This is because when you try to hot glue the other end, the glue will slide back out because of the pressure built up inside. Once you've poked a hole through the end that is already sealed, go ahead and seal up the other end. Then put your screw eye back into the side you unscrewed it from.

Step 5: Heatshrink

Cut your piece of heat shrink tubing into pieces that are long enough to cover the spots with no paint (the ends, where there is hot glue instead of paint). Once you have them to where you'd like them, use a lighter / heat source to shrink the heat shrink tubing. Then, using a knife, cut off any excess heat shrink tubing on each end.

Step 6: Done!

Now you have a cheap glow key fob to put on your key chain or whatever you'd prefer.