Phoenix Fire Lily: Solar rechargeable battery connected to a flickering LED inside an artificial lily flower residing in a hand-crafted wooden vase.
I don’t know about you, but I rarely have money to spend on projects and whenever possible reusing and re-purposing junk is ideal. Many of my projects contain parts I’ve purchased at local dollar stores and items found through eBay.
Parts:
- Artificial Lily Flower
- Flickering LED
- Thermostat Wire
- 100-330ohm Resistor
- Mini switch
- Solar-panel ~ 5vDC
- Rechargeable Li-ion Coin-cell Battery
- Rechargeable Li-ion Coin-cell Battery charger = TP4056 Mini USB 1A Lithium Battery Charger Module
- USB to mini USB ~ 5ft. cord
- Optional ~ hand-crafted vase station
Steps:
- Cut the end of the stem and remove the wire.
- Gut the Artificial Lily Flower by removing its pistil.
- Using a 8-10″ length of Thermostat Wire that extends just beyond the end of the lily’s stem, solder a 100-330ohm resistor to flickering LED and/or later near the mini switch inside the recycled case.
Do I really need a resistor?
- Clear LED without resistor = 30mA @ 3vDC
- Flickering Yellow LED ~ 6mA @ 3vDC
- salvaged 10 LED string of lights = 6mA @ 3vDC
- Carefully thread the wired LED through the lily and down her stem.
- Add a piece of heat-shrink tubing, solder jumper wires, and attach connector header.
- Solder a set of short jumper wires to the Rechargeable Li-ion Coin-cell Battery charger output.
- Solder the Rechargeable Li-ion Coin-cell Battery charger output short jumper wires, resistor, to the mini switch and recycled case ( two “AA” batteries ).
- Solder the coin-cell battery holder to the Rechargeable Li-ion Coin-cell Battery charger
- Insert the Rechargeable Li-ion Coin-cell Battery into the Rechargeable Li-ion Coin-cell Battery charger.
A look inside the inexpensive battery case.
- Gut everything from the case!
- Drill a few holes. One for the solar panel wires, and the other for USB connector.
- Solder a simple switching diode, such as 1N4148, to the positive side.
- Using short jumper wires, solder the Rechargeable Li-ion Coin-cell Battery charger input to the solar panel ~ 5vDC.
- Insert the switch and wrap wires so they lay flat inside the case.
- Test the output.
- Optionally, attach USB to mini USB cord to the charger
- Store inside a hand-crafted vase station.
You can purchase a completed Phoenix Fire Lily directly from me as a functioning example.
