Saturday, August 22, 2015, 07:16
Posted by Administrator
These little lights are great for floating in the bath, a pool, or just setting in your guests drinks for a little extra style at a party.Posted by Administrator
Base materials:
- Ping pong balls
- LED lights ( Look for ones driven well at ~3 volts )
- CR2032 3V/20mAh buttoncell batteries ( Or any small battery that will drive your LED well )
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And for constructing them:
- A box cutter
- Opaque office tape ( for diffusing the light )
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- A hot glue gun with hot glue sticks
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To begin you will want to bend the legs of your LED light such that they loop back on themselves snugly and place battery in-between the legs such that the light turns on. You will want a battery that drives your LED well without burning it out at full power and with enough amperage to last for a while. My favorite choice for the LED's I found were CR2032 buttoncells ( both found on Ebay ).
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After you get the LED shining brightly on the battery take your office tape and wrap it snugly around the battery to hold the wire legs in place so that they won't slip off.
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Now take a lot more tape and wrap it around the whole battery and LED. Pay special attention to go around the light a number of times and make it as puffy as possible. The idea here is to use the tape to start diffusing the light so that you won't end up with glaring light spots inside the finished orb. The tape should spread out the light giving you a small lumpy mass looking something like this.
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Next you will want to carefully take your box cutter to make an incision in the ping pong ball just wide enough to fit the LED and battery to fit inside. Stuff it all in there and work on getting the ball back to its original shape in-case you have dented it any during the operation.
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Work on getting the incision in the ping pong ball to be flush with itself again and hold it in place with one hand while using your other hand to hot glue the seam together. To get this seal less globular place some more office tape over the patch to make it push more closely to the ball. Be careful not to damage your fingers on the hot glue if you decide to press it down with tape. The idea here is to completely cover the incision and hold the ball together in a watertight package.
Once the hot glue has finished cooling clean up the area a bit with the box cutter if necessary and take off any tape if you decided to push the glue down close to the ball that way.
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You've done it! You now have a glowing watertight ping pong ball orb to use in any way you see fit. My favorite thing to do with them is to bring them into the bath for some relaxing mood lighting. They also work quite well as drink markers at a party ( each person can have their own color ). I also found them quite fun to just toss around or set in a bowl.
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Depending on what LED light and battery you used they should last for quite a while. Mine went for a few days before getting so dim that I took them apart and salvaged the LED.
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