Tardis Christmas Tree Topper

I really wanted a cool Christmas Tree Topper. I happened to see a cool Tardis one, but it was small, expensive, and battery operated. That seems silly. Who wants batteries on a Christmas Tree?

I looked around and couldn't find anything fitting the bill. What I did find was a Tardis Cookie Jar for $30 on Amazon. It was battery operated, but had light and sound action. Sounds good. Order the cookie jar, cut a hole in the bottom, locate a switch somewhere on the tree and bobs your uncle.

I was really hoping that the batteries and sound action was in the lid and not the base, and when it got here, thankfully it was and it's quite a simple project.

The power adapter mod is not neccesary. You could keep the batteries. In hind sight it was just extra work. The batteries probably last a while. However, in future I plan to mod the LED to be constantly blinking, not just when the button is pressed.

Step 1: Materials

A Tardis cookie jar. Available on Amazon here -

https://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Who-Tardis-Cookie-Li...

A 4.5V power supply. I used a USB charger I found in my stash

Some sort of momentary switch, light duty

Something resembling a Christmas ornament to put your switch in

Step 2: The Easy Part

Once you get this bad boy home, you need to open the lid. The insides are self explanatory. I cut off the battery wires and soldered the positive and negative wires from my power supply right to them. They may or may not be polarity sensitive, so I kept the polarity the same. The power supply I used was .5 over voltage, but amperage is the same. So far this hasn't, and shouldn't been an issue.

The next step is to solder up your switch. I kept both the factory lid switch and top switch active and just pig tailed off those leads with my switch.

Next stuff that bad boy in a tree ornament. I got this fancy snowman from the dollar store. When you squeeze the snowman, it now operates that switch.

Slap this thing back together, scour the kitchen floor for the screws you lost, and boom, almost there

Remove the bottom plate, and drill a hole in it for the Christmas tree. I used a 2.25" hole saw. It's just plastic, you could also use a sharp knife to cut it. Jig saw. Whatever you happen to have handy. Reattach the plate

Step 3: Give It a Test

That's it. Now you have your very own, non battery operated, hidden switch, Tardis tree topper

Pop it on top of your tree, plug the power adapter into your tree light cord, locate the hidden switch somewhere on the tree and hide your wires.

Boom, time to take this thing for a test drive