1
\$\begingroup\$

I have an old ceramic Christmas tree that I would like to convert to a battery powered source in order to get rid of the cord.

Ideally I'd love to add a timer to it as well.

I'm not sure what would be the best light source to add here since the light needs to be pretty bright.

Any ideas would be appreciated! Thanks in advance

enter image description here enter image description here

Improve this question
\$\endgroup\$
7
  • \$\begingroup\$ Glue LEDs under the "lights". \$\endgroup\$ – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Dec 14 '13 at 0:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ How much experience with electronics do you have? \$\endgroup\$ – geometrikal Dec 14 '13 at 0:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ @geometrikal Not too much, but I'm willing to put sometime into it. \$\endgroup\$ – Christina Rule Dec 14 '13 at 0:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams I'd prefer not to "glue" anything to the piece. At least not where each bulb sits. \$\endgroup\$ – Christina Rule Dec 14 '13 at 0:58
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ The thing is that something bright enough to light them all from the middle will need a lot of power, which means a large battery pack. Localizing the light source will let you get away with something much smaller. Plus, it will let you control the lights individually. \$\endgroup\$ – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Dec 14 '13 at 1:18
1
\$\begingroup\$

well I would recommend LED's about 10 for low power usage and bright light how ever for the timer that gets a little more advanced you have four options the first you can hope to tine one online----- oh one more use the circuit from thos lawn lights use a transistor to use the other battery you might have third use a arduino... forth you could use two 555 timers one in monostable and the other in astable the mono stable would turn on a D-TYPE FLIP FLOP and trigger the astable 555 to after the desired amount of time turn off but this requires time to set it up every year...

Improve this answer
\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Two basic options for converting this to battery power.

The first is LEDs. While you could glue/place/attach individual leds to each bulb, that would be a mess to attempt. A single 1W or higher LED would be plenty bright. You could go with a bare LED star, or use commercial 12V LED modules. You could even use a LED intended for car lighting, in a nice omni-directional shape.

enter image description here

The other option is a CFL bulb. You could hack one, by taking out all of the electronics, and using a disposable camera flash circuit, or bug zapper (Both are low voltage to High Voltage transformers) to drive the bulb from a pair of AA batteries. Or you know, you can just buy a CFL that's designed for 12V DC.

Improve this answer
\$\endgroup\$

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.