Pumpkin lighting

[pitman2]

Hello all. I want to make an LED pumpkin light (battery powered) that's bright enough to be seen in a moderately lit environment. But I've never made anything like this before, and I'm not too familiar with... circuitry(?), and I must learn! Any suggestions would be helpful.

 

[StarHalo]

Just put a Sylvania Dot-It in the pumpkin, $6 at your local hardware store and you're done. See it here: http://www.sylvania.com/ConsumerProducts/LightsActionDOTit/DOTitclassic/

 

[PhotonWrangler]

WalMart has a color-changing pumpkin light for $2.50. I'm sure it's not as bright as the Sylvania Dot-It though. Depends on whether you want a lot of light or a rainbow of colors.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

LEDs are great for lighting pumpkins in the sub-tropics where candles may raise the interior temps so much that the pumpkin will be toast in just a couple of days.

A few years ago I had great results lighting a pumpkin with an EL Hyper Blaster with the head skrewed off, in candle mode. Great runtime, too!

BOO!

 

[greenLED]

Another idea that works is to put an LED "tea candle" inside the pumpkin. The candle looks like a regular tea candle, and the LED flickers a bit.

 

[metlarules]

Get the head off of one of your old 2 cr123 flashlights with a strobe fuction.Go to Radio Shack and purchase a 4d battery holder with built in switch. Hook it all up and wallah! Strobing Pumkin

 

[Mr_Light]

I carve all of our pumpkins with the hole at the bottom and then run an extension cord to them, plug a standard nightlight into the end of the cord and set the pumpkin on top. There are all kinds of color changing and LED nightlights, they can be plugged into timers, and they are cheap in case there are any trickers out there. The closed top of the Pumpkin does a pretty good job of keeping the rain out, although I would recommend these being plugged into a GFCI outlet.

 

[pitman2]

I've been carving artificial pumpkins for the past few years, so fire as a light source is out. I don't think that artificial candles are bright enough. I have tried a couple of other battery powered pumpkin lights but they're just not bright enough. I do have a string of nightlights that I use, and they work OK, but i want a cordless option. And it needs to be bright enough to be visible in a moderately lit room.

 

[lildave]

use a 1 watt and a 555 timer (for flicker)or a few 555 for more random

 

[83Venture]

Iv'e used an EternaLight on Dazzel mode that works pretty well. Opened the mail box and put it inside and placed a mask over it and that worked too.

 

[StarHalo]

Iv'e used an EternaLight on Dazzel mode that works pretty well.

Ha, I forgot about the EternaLight! An EternaLight Rave'n2 would give you the most unique pumpkin in your county.. oo:

 

[qwertyydude]

I think this is a good application for one of those lights that cycles through different colors too.

 

[Gorgon5]

Iv'e used an EternaLight on Dazzel mode that works pretty well. Opened the mail box and put it inside and placed a mask over it and that worked too.

Ha! I did the same thing with my pumpkin! It caused me to "rediscover" my ErgoMarine, and it looked great. Although I wish I knew why a couple days later it started not turning off and had hot batteries when I decided to take them out...

 

[pitman2]

Ok, it's near that time of year that I'm thinking about this again. I bought a few of these Cree LEDs. And now I'm trying to find resistors for them. I'll be running them off of three AA batteries and the LED calculator states that I need a 1.5ohm 2watt resistor to run it at 3.5v @ 750ma. Since I can't find this resistor locally I'll have to order it online. But because I have to order it online, I'm wondering if I should just purchase a regulated circuit board or something. Opinions?

http://ledsupply.com/xreww-l1.php

http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz

 

[mmmflashlights]

I'd buy a cheap circuit off of DX (Dealextreme.com), probably going to cost just as much to order a resistor from most places online after shipping is considered. They have plenty of different circuits that will run fine from an approximate 4.5V source of 3 AAs. You could even get a multi-mode circuit that strobes and has different output levels. DX orders take a couple weeks to arrive, just so you're aware. Keep in mind that it would be best to mount the Cree 'star' onto a small piece of aluminum or similar if driving it at a high level, to keep it from getting too hot. Or just cheat and buy a cheap, complete LED light and put some sort of diffuser (about anything translucent will do) over the LED and toss it in the pumpkin.