Maybe I should have picked a different title, but here goes…
Before I start on another project, I wanted to mess with this little goofy thing because it looked like fun.
A friend of mine, Andrew Brandon of Pacific Narrow Gauge fame, shared this idea with me last October. Basically, put a fairy light solar cell into the top of a barrel, and use the lights to illuminate an adjacent building.
Here’s the style of lights I picked, because of the small solar sensor.
The battery has to be tiny, and won’t last long I expect; and the case isn’t openable. But at less than $2 per, I figure they’re replaceable.
I slightly modified my trestle barrel for the proper cavity, and to have a separate top ring. This is to allow the switch to fit into a slot, with the ring going over it.
Since I mainly wanted a “proof of concept”, this is as far as I’ll take it at this point. Seems to work.
There are many other designs for these solar fairy lights, both round and square, mostly larger, which could be used with crates or vats or oil drums, maybe chimney tops, etc. Be nice to have an inline jack for the light string, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort if the controllers don’t last.
Lots of room for further investigation, if someone feels so moved. If so, and you want to try this particular approach, here’s the STL files. They’re set up for resin printing, but might work with FDM.
LED Barrel - C Jennings.zip (702.8 KB)
Cliff
