Introduction: LED Tilt Light Box

About: Well, I feel like I am a pretty regular guy... I work in the Entertainment industry. I love to create things, and build things so this site is one of my regular places :) I also enjoy going out doors, playin…
This instructable will show you how to make a simple circuit board with a mercury switch (tilt switch) and LEDs, and then a little wooden box with a window to put it in.



Step 1: Parts Needed, and Where I Got Them

Alright so here is the list of materials that are needed for this project, everything can be found at local stores but online is cheaper...

Wooden Box (found at Micheal's arts and crafts)

Project board (I bought at www.besthongkong.com, also at Fry's Electronics)

LEDs (I bought at www.besthongkong.com, also at Fry's Electronics)

Resistors for my project I used 150 ohm resistors, but whichever kind you need for your LEDs, how I have found out is by going to http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz which is a LED calculator, you plug in your information and it tells you the array and what resistors to use. (I bought at www.besthongkong.com, also at Fry's Electronics)

Mercury Switch (found at Fry's Electronics, but I am sure Radio shack has them too)

9V Battery plug (found at Fry's Electronics, but I am sure Radio shack has them too)

9V Battery (found just about everywhere)

Fogged hard plastic (Home depot, Lowe's)

Step 2: Making the Wooden Box

First you need to decide the size of window you want, I just ended up going half inch in on all sides, in this part you can get as creative as you want, you can cut different size holes, maybe in quarters so there is four windows, however you want to do it....

So I marked my cuts with a pencil then used a drill and drilled some holes big enough to fit my little saw blade into. I have a hack saw blade that I used for this, but if you have a jig saw it would be much faster. So just cut out the shape you want on the front of the box, once cut out, don't forget to do a little sanding to make sure everything is looks good!

After the hole is cut out, measure the inside of the box and then mark the dimensions on the Fogged hard plastic. Then proceed to cut out the Plastic so a nice square will fit right into the top of the box. To attache the piece of plastic I used double sided tape, but you can used glue or whatever you choose.

Step 3: Making the Circuit Board

Alright so here we go with the solder of the circuit board. It is kind of hard to explain in words so I took pictures and made a diagram of how the circuit works... Some things to know before starting the soldering.

Make sure not to solder the LEDs really close to the board, you do need room to bend them outward, if you don't bend them outward then you will get big spots, and not a nice defused light.

Do the same thing with the Mercury switch, you will need to bend that so it will turn on and off at the angles you want them to.

With the Resistors I DID solder them so they were on the board, you don't want those to get in the way or break off, so keep those nice and clean.

On the underside of the circuit board you can see I just laid rows of solder instead of adding wire to connect each component, it doesn't matter how you want to do it, I chose this way because it looks nice and clean when it is all done.

Step 4: Installing the Circuit Board

Alright so the last step, putting the circuit board and the battery into the box. This part is nothing fancy, for mounting the circuit board all I did was use some electrical tape and fold it into a loop with the sticky side out and and placed two of those loops on the back of the board and stuck it into the box. As far as the battery, I just used double sided tape and stuck it against the wall... my original idea was to actually mount the board with some screws so it is suspended a little of the wood, but I just didn't have the time to finish that part :)

Step 5: Finally DONE!!

Alright so now it all works! When it is standing up the LEDs should be on, and when you lay them on their backs they should turn off, please let me know if you have any questions, and please if you make one of these or a variation of them let me know, and or show off a picture of them! Thank you for taking a look, and I hope this explained it good enough!


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