Fire Flower - Solar Rechargeable Decor

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? Probably.

• 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.

Did you know you can receive this project?

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