Introduction: Firefly Jar!
Its cheap and easy!
Make your weekend useful by decorating your garden with as many jars of fire flies hanging from the trees! It takes less than 10 mins to make one of these. So try it out!
Step 1: What You Need!
- Any colour festival led lights will do! (its all right if some leds don't work)
- A large plastic jar (mine is a bit small but don't use glass!)
- A drilling machine or a screwdriver
- Electrical tape
- Scissors
- Strong string
- Hot glue or epoxy or you could try using some other glue if you know it will work.
- And a little skills! :)
Step 2: Making a Hole for the Power Wire!
For this step I first marked the center and then used a drilling machine to drill a hole. For those who don't have a drilling machine you could heat the screwdriver and melt the plastic to form a hole!
Note: In this step I haven't made holes on the walls of the jar, but I suggest you to make a few holes that act like vents to the lights and cool them down.
Step 3: Cuting the Power Wire
Cut the power wire. Don't cut the wire too close to the bulb or the plug.
Step 4: Filling Up the Jar With Fireflies!
- Pass the cut end of the wire through the holes made in the lid. Then randomly start filling the jar with the bulbs!
- Tie the string to the nut with a couple of knots. Pass the other end of the string through the same hole. Now close the lid, make sure that you don't squeeze any wires between the lid and the jar.
- Pull the wire and thread. Take your Hot glue or Epoxy glue or any glue you think which will work to seal the gap. And not let the fireflies escape! :D (It is for not letting insects or water collecting in your jar).
- Now only the connections are left to be completed!! Yay!!
Step 5: The Connections!
WARNING: RISK OF SHOCK! PLEASE DO THIS UNDER ADULT SUPERVISION!
- Take the two ends of the wire from the jar and remove the outer rubber insulator to expose the copper wire. do the same procedure for the plug side.
- connect the one wire from the plug side to the bulb side. repeat it with the other wire. DON-NOT LET THE TWO WIRES TOUCH EACH OTHER!
- Use tape to insulate the two wires.
- FINALLY YOU ARE DONE!!!
Step 6: CHEAP AND EASY!
FINALLY ITS DONE!
Make as may of these jars, tie them to a tree's branch and watch them glow! Feel free to ask any question, would love to answer them ASAP
If you made this Instructable and liked it please VOTE for me and post a PICTURE and make the comments section colorful!! :P
Thank you! :)
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9 Comments
9 years ago on Introduction
This is great.I brought the wire over to the outdoor plug and wired the flashing unit inline and with it your firefly PLUSE and blink and do all sorts of things. I have a controller that will plluse to music. Now when the two feet of snow melts and the temp vets above zero I will be ready to go with one on each side of the porch.
Reply 9 years ago on Introduction
That's awesome!
Post a picture of that when you use it :)
9 years ago on Introduction
What makes it Firefly-like? Where I live the fireflies glow in a pulsating pattern. The lights you show would just come on and stahy on, or am I misunderstanding something??
Reply 9 years ago on Introduction
Nope you haven't misunderstood any thing! Its your choice what type of led lights you use. You could use Christmas pulsating led lights to make them look realistic. But I haven't used them in my Instructable to keep costs minimal, cheap and easy for others!
If you are using the pulsating led lights then you should always keep the little control box inside NOT outside the jar (due to water the risk of electric shock is much more).
If you want it to look more realistic then go for the pulsating one!
9 years ago on Introduction
One suggestion I would make: If this is going to be left hanging outdoors, you might want to seal up the hole in the lid with caulk, epoxy, or hot glue to keep water (or even insects) from collecting in the jar. Heat should not be a significant issue if you're using LEDs.
Reply 9 years ago on Introduction
Yup!
9 years ago
Why shouldn't you use a glass jar?
Reply 9 years ago on Introduction
I said that because glass is heavy and plastic is light. You could if it has a plastic top or if you are going to hang it on a thick and strong branch.
But the one which I made is cheap, glass may be a bit more expensive. If you try it let me know how it worked out for you.
Reply 9 years ago
If you were to recycle a glass jam jar then it wouldn't cost you anything and glass isn't that much heavier than plastic, the only problem would be if you dropped it and it smashed. Cool project and if i do make one i will post a picture.