DIY Jam Jar Garden Lamps - Basic Homemade Yard Lights | Tutorial

Intro: DIY Jam Jar Garden Lamps - Basic Homemade Yard Lights | Tutorial

Want to spice up your yard on a budget or just light it up in style? Make a set of AC Jam Jar Garden Lamps!

In this Instructable, I'll guide you through how to make one of these basic but stylish outdoor yard lamps simply from some scrap pipes n' cans and one of your everyday Jam Jars. Each of these will house an LED light bulb that'll illuminate your yard without looking cheap.

CAUTION:

As these lamps will have 110V AC (or 220V depending on the country) powering them, keep in mind the safety hazards that come with working around electricity if dealt with improperly. NEVER work on a lamp while it is powered (live electricity), even when wiring one to the grid (keep electricity off when installing). If you can, ground any metal casing/enclosing tin parts on the lamp with an earth wire nearby to prevent anyone from being electrocuted during operation (this is shown in step 12).

STEP 1: Peel Away Label on Jam Jar

Peeling away the label on our Jam Jar can be done with a Utility knife or simply loosened off with some warm water under a tap. Scrub and wash well with some dish soap to remove excess sticky residue.

STEP 2: Bore Hole in Lid

With the help of a drill machine, we can drill the appropriate-sized hole in our jar lid for the AC Lamp holder to poke through. Diameter - 38mm or 1 1/2 inch

Afterward, we can spray paint the lid with just a single coat. Though, an anti-rust primer is recommended to apply onto the lid first.

STEP 3: Making the Lamp's Head Joint

Heating up an 8cm section of pipe over the stove, we can split it down half-way and spread it flat on a surface. After trimming the piece and drilling it a pair of holes, this makes for a decent lamp head-to-pipe joint.

STEP 4: Forming the Lamp's Hat

We can take something as basic as a tin paint can and convert its bottom into an oriental-style hat for our lamp to help deflect rainwater. In forming it, be sure to snip around every 1cm and bend the sharp edges away below the hat for safety.

Diameter of can - 10cm

STEP 5: Prepping the Lamp Holder Stick

Let's trim off a wedge from the longest section of pipe to form a pointy grounding end. Cutting the pipe near that end will help create the necessary gap to fit in a PVC Tee Joint for the wires to slip out sideways.

STEP 6: Painting Parts

Now that we're done forming the necessary parts for the lamp, we can spray paint them with the color of your choice. I chose silver for metal parts and black for plastic ones.

STEP 7: Assembling Bulb Base

Here, let's take the painted split joint we made earlier and bolt it to the porcelain bulb holder with those 3M nuts and bolts. For connecting the supporting pipe, let's also connect a half-inch coupling to the custom adjoining mount.

Electrically, we'll also pull through the 14AWG wire pair and fasten those to the bulb holder's screw leads.

STEP 8: Securing Jar Lid

We'll insulate the electrical connections and take the cover holder or jar lid we drilled previously and hot glue it to the bulb holder. Be sure to check that these have a tight fit.

STEP 9: Gluing on the Lamp's Tin Hat

STEP 10: Assembling the 3 Parts

Let's screw in one of these LED bulbs into the socket (check that your bulb will fit in jar before purchasing). Then we can fit the 3 parts together that we've prepared earlier: Glass enclosure (top), lamp base with bulb, and the supporting ground pipe. Be sure to pull the two wires down and out through the Tee pipe.

STEP 11: Hooking Things Up to the System

To install these lamps, you'd first need to already have underground electrical tubing in place (preferably, a junction wiring box containing a live and neutral wire to which we'll connect the lamp. There must also be a ground wire installed, shortly afterward (shown in the next step).

Once the wires are hooked up to the system in parallel, these must get insulated and hidden away at the base of the lamp or junction box.

STEP 12: Grounding the Lamp

Grounding/Earthing the lamps you install is crucial in preventing potential tingles, shocks, or even deaths from touching the lamp's metal parts. You wouldn't want to leave a rigged setup or death trap waiting for somewhere out there!

We must ground the lamp we've made by running a third wire (in pink) from the tin jar lid casing to the ground via a ground rod (homemade version). The longer the ground rod, the better connection with moist earth. I used these short, quarter-inch copper tubes extended with additional stranded copper wire to get a crude-looking but functional grounding rod.

Grounding systems typically have grounded elements such as the lamps also connected by a common wire, creating an interconnected set of grounding points (fully grounded). This step is not shown in these images.

As Alternating Current (AC) can get really dangerous at voltages higher than 50V, it is important to have any AC appliance's metal casing connected to the ground. This drains leakage AC voltage from the hot wire touching the metal to the conductive rainwater floating in the tin lid to flow right into the ground, rather than passing through you.

STEP 13: Creating a Base

We can create a basic supporting base out of concrete to help keep the lamp firmly seated in the ground. I used a sour cream plastic container for the mold.

STEP 14: More Spray Painting

To blend in the base, we can do it with a layer of black spray paint, matching the rest of the lamp.

STEP 15: The Finished Garden Lamp

You've made it this far, great job! Having followed the steps above, you now have at least one or more of these AC outdoor lamps as a neat addition to lighting your Yard, patio, or driveway in style. In my case, I made 3 of these DIY lamps specifically to replace the old/broken driveway lamps that were previously seated in those spots.

I've had these lamps sitting in the driveway for over 3 months as of releasing this Instructable. There are slight signs of corrosion on the tin due to not using a coat of primer spray paint prior to painting the parts. So it's quite important to prevent such a thing from happening with some basic anti-rust primer paint. Other than that, they're still running well outside to this day, lighting up the way.

Thanks for reading and happy making!

Comments

[wjf213.]

This is exactly what I've been looking for, but not for yard lights. I'm going to use this basic idea to make some Santa Runway Lights that are no longer made. You should do another instructable on making those. Keep up the great work.

[Max Imagination]

Sounds like an exciting project. Thanks for your comment!

[dlynnelfyt]

One thing you didn't show or explain regarding the tin hat. How do you change it from a flat surface to a cone shape as shown?

[Aristarco]

In Step 4, the pic in the middle shows a cut has been made from the center and the tin deformed to follow a conic shape, then glued. I'd personally solder it but I imagine glue does the trick.

[Max Imagination]

Soldering is possible but can be a bit of a pain for some, especially if the Soldering tin isn't sticking to the metal. But tin metal in most cases is pretty easy to solder. Superglue worked fine in my case. 3 months later, the hats still haven't come undone.

[olsenm900]

I have ,made these before, however I used solar lights instead of running up my electric bill. They are not as bright but you can still where you are going or need to be

[Max Imagination]

Nice! Solar is usually the way to go. Though, I stuck to AC as I've made these to replace my previous garden lamps that were also powered through mains voltage.

Anyone following this instructable may choose to make the lamp DC and battery + solar powered for placing practically anywhere. Cheers.

[Barry6470]

Very nice they look great, well done.

[Max Imagination]

Thanks, Barry!

[charlessenf-gm]

Nice work.

I liked the little cap.

However, if you are actually running 120VAC (or the equivalent out to these path lights, I would suggest you run standard grounded 14 gauge underground (direct bury) rated UL Approved grounded wire be run from a GFCI outlet (Load Terminals) or breaker.
As even LED bulbs generate heat, you need to be certain those you use are rated for 'enclosed fixtures' such as you have created and should effect some sort of ventilation rather than sealing the 'jars' air tight.
Heat will not only prove the enemy of your lamps, but of the 'HotMelt' employed as sealant and adhesive, too. You might want to try a construction adhesive (polyurethane?) and exterior caulking, respectively.

As an alternative, you might want to look on Amazon for automotive LED BACKUP lights that work nicely on twelve volts DC, do not require a third 'ground' lead and can be powered by a solar re-charged battery or a simple 'Wall Wart" transformer as supplied (see Amazon again*) for powering the sort of LED tape lighting.

One issue with upside down jars is that the caps no longer shed moisture from above, but attempt in the new orientation to collect what ever comes from the new 'above.' So, a wee drain opening or two might offer any moisture entering thereby a convenient exit while doing a bit towards ventilating the device as well.


* "POWSEED Universal 45W 5V 6V 7.5V 9V 12V 13.5V 15V AC DC Power Adapter for Household Electronics Routers CCTV IP Cameras Speaker USB Hub Tablet LED Strips, Multi Voltage Supply Cord Charger 1A 2A"

[MagicMike21]

Looks good and well itemised. I would use 12 volt for safety. We have 230v in the UK.
Also for the hats you could use Aluminium drinks can - ready finished and won't rust....