LED halloween get up, HELP!

[Bluetobb]

Hi! my name is Dan.

I have a 3 year old son who loves Buzz Light Year. He will be dressed as him for Halloween. I have an old bike trailer that I mean to make into his space ship. I plan to decorate the spaceship with LED's. My initial plan was to buy some 'Hitlights Red Flexible Ribbon LED Strip Light, 300 LEDs, 5 Meters (16.4 Feet) Spool, 12VDC Input (Adapter not included)' from amazon (various colors) and hook them up to a lawn mower battery and be done. Seems its not that simple. I am looking for detailed and simple explanation and parts list to make this happen. Do I need diodes? ect?

Next and less importantly. If I can get past the first hurdle I would secondly like to build some circutry or purchase something cheap in order to make one strand flicker. I am thinking of putting them in several cones in the back and and sticking some white tissue paper coming out in order to look like engines firing. Is this simple can a noob do it?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Dan

 

[jason 77]

What voltage is the lawn mower battery?

Also since this is just for a one time halloween thing search EBAY for RGB led strips. You will find cheap LED strips and many different kind of controllers for them which you can use to control the different colors and flashing rates of them.

 

[Bluetobb]

What voltage is the lawn mower battery?

Also since this is just for a one time halloween thing search EBAY for RGB led strips. You will find cheap LED strips and many different kind of controllers for them which you can use to control the different colors and flashing rates of them.

The lawn mower battery is a 12 volt battery. It's the same a car battery with a lot let stored power.

Whatever I buy I would like to incorporate into something after Halloween. Maybe kids bedroom, playroom or Christmas decor. If I have fun with this build I could see myself and kids getting into all kinds of fun LED projects.

Thanks for the feedback!
Dan

 

[DIWdiver]

Firstly, kudos for trying to get the kids involved. I think that kids that learn to build while young, end up more well-rounded adults.

This sounds like a thoroughly workable plan. You can connect the whole strip to the battery, or cut it into 2, 3, 8, 10 pieces (same or different sizes) and connect each of them to the battery. Or connect some directly and some through a 'blinker' circuit.


The flicker effect is going to be the only technical challenge. LED controllers are cheap and easy to find, but they need something to tell them what to do. That will be the tricky part.

 

[StarHalo]

While you're decorating, don't forget the perennial flashaholic Halloween favorite, the EternaLight Rave'n2; lots of insane colors and strobes and modes to choose from, 3xAAs, $40. It won't replace your strips, but adds a whole lot of awesome in a jack-o'-lantern, interior space, or window with no effort..

 

[Christexan]

Regarding flickering, look up "led blinker" circuits (instructables.com has lots)...
You can order parts super cheap from mouser.com (don't do radio shack, you'll spend 10x too much on small parts).

The sample circuits you will find are often going to be for small single LEDs, but instead you'll use your "12V strip lights" (from walmart, auto store, ebay, wherever). Those light strips already are configured for 12V (built-in resistor on the strips). So where you find a circuit for a "single" or "pair (on/off, off/on) circuit with a 9V battery, you can substitute your led strips, and 12V battery.

A simple "rc" circuit (astable multivibrator (am), drives 2 LEDs alternating) uses power source (battery), 2 capacitors, and 2 resistors to set the "blink rate" (they also have 2 other resistors to control the LED current, you won't use those because the LED strips already have those built-in).

If you build 2 or 3 duplicate circuits (above, or a 555 timer circuit, or other methods whatever), and vary the timings (use a different resistor rating on different circuits), then the combined variable flickering(s) should give you what you are looking for.

With 3 of the am circuits, on different timings, you should get interesting results. Also, in an am circuit, you can use different resistors on each half so that each LED is on, and off, for a different period, so with 3 circuits, with different timings on each half of the circuit, you'd end up having 6 different timings, resulting in a pretty good mix of "random" effects.

Or you can probably buy a bag of "12V blinking LEDs" that do it all for you, just wire them up.

Any of these solutions, you are likely looking at only $10-20 in parts.