More Low Power Lunacy

I have to thank calipsoii and his lamplighter project for the inspiration to finally try this myself.

I tested red, green, orange and blue LEDs, all running around .1 to .05 mah. Blue turned out to be the brightest by far at the same current.

Final configuration; generic 3mm blue LED, a 12K omh resistor and an external charger via a 1.3mm DC jack.

The LED runs at .12mah on a full charge.


Installed into a 3/8" ID polypropylene tube at 2" long. For comparison, a 3/8" x 1.75" V10 glow stick.


And the money shot.


The glow stick is obviously brighter but by calculation the 85mah battery fully charged should glow for about a month. I have a couple of 10150 batteries, micro USB and a MCP73831T lipo charger chip on order. I should be able to make an even smaller one with those components and be able to charge it from any USB plug.

Thanks for looking.

I've always wanted to make a UV flasher to charge any glow-in-the-dark items in my pockets. I'm happy to see these DIY flashers show up lately. Perhaps it's time for me to scavenge some of my old boards for SMD LEDs...

Looking good sunny_nites! :twothumbs

I like that your 3mm is sitting against the somewhat reflective LiPo; gives it nice diffusion. Make sure to post pics when you get your next model constructed!

Thanks!

The polypropylene does a great job of diffusing the light and gives a pretty good reach around to the opposite side of the battery.

Bashananahan14rulz mentioned UV light. I originally wanted to go with a 405nm UV LED but couldn't get it to run at less than .5mah. That wouldn't give much run time with the 85mah battery but it does give a really cool looking light when diffused through the tubing.

The picture really doesn't do it justice. The tube glows a kind of eerie purple, really neat effect.


The tubing is listed as being "UV resistant" and I would guess that the glow is probably some reaction the UV light source.