Easy light up holoprojector...

[Don Solo]

I went to K-Mart a week or so ago and saw a strange little christmas decoration. Some sort of acrylic ice-cube snowman thing, about 3" tall, with a light up base. To my delight, the lights inside were 2 LEDs that faded in and out, red to blue. For $3 I had to buy one. I pryed the base off and snapped off the red LED, and (thankfuly) the blue one still worked. So now when you turn it on, the one blue LED fades in and out slowly. Combine that with a "holographic" figure (or in my case the spirit of Yoda) and just make a shell, and bam! Youv've got a "working" holoprojector!


This should be a pretty easy project to finish... so I'm giving myself 3 months

[Olos Nay]

Cool. Thanks for the tip, I'll start looking. at 3$, its sure to be a good idea.
Instead of taking the red out, I'd put another blue one... ;-)

I hope they have those in Canada :-(

[Don Solo]

Yeah, I'd prefer to have 2 blue LEDs in there, but I don't have a second one of the right size and I'd be worried about killing the circuit

[Tobbok Nassias]

Can you bridge the circuit so that the blue light fades and the then goes bright again?

[Olos Nay]

I was thinking blue and white... like the hologram changes color a bit.
I have a cheaper version of these decorations: only one light. I could have done that myself, but the size is perfect for the projector, so I tough I'd use it.

[Don Solo]

heath said:

Can you bridge the circuit so that the blue light fades and the then goes bright again?

well, it does that to begin with, but in one cycle the red LED would peak when the blue LED is completely out, so linking the two onto a single LED would either burn it out, or keep a constant level. I just need to dig out my other electronic bits to see what I have to work with, I may try another blue one or a white one... possibly sharpied to vary he tone.