Flickering LEDs

[Cliff Hartle]

Pretty sure I have posted this before, but has anyone ever seen the
flickering LEDs they use in tea light candles by themselves?

I just need the led not everthing else like the 2032 batteries or the case
like if I bought them from a store.

 

[Kaz Kylheku]

Pretty sure I have posted this before, but has anyone ever seen the
flickering LEDs they use in tea light candles by themselves?

LOL! There is no such LED. The candle-like flickering is produced by current
variations by the circuit. (The circuit and the LED may be tightly integrated
onto one board, but the LED is still just a non-flickering device.)

Do you know how to use a search engine? I found this in three seconds:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Random-Flickering-LED-Snowflake/step2/Modifying-LED-Tea-Lights/

Here, the author takes apart the tealight, removing the LED from the circuit
board, and taps the signal to drive the internal LED in an optocoupler.

The output of the optocoupler is used to drive a power MOSFET which in turn
causes a whole array of LED's to flicker.

A PDF circuit diagram is given (but not for the flickering circuit,
just for the mod.)

 

[Cliff Hartle]

Yes I can get them from Dollar tree but I need around 60 or so and and like
I posted I don't need the switch and the case and the 2032 battery

 

[Cliff Hartle]

Yes I can goggle and have seen that mod but they no longer make them that
way there is no extra circuit board . Just a battery, a case, a switch and
teh LED. Oh and a piece of plastic that looks like a flame.

 

[Cliff Hartle]

Here is what I want to do.

I have 3 or 4 sets of candles for our Xmas tree. They are standard miniture
120 ac lights on top of a small plastic candles with clips that attach them
to the branches. They are a bit finiky and the bulbs get loose and I would
love to replace them with LED.

Even though I bought them years ago at Hechingers I found them again.

http://www.bronners.com/product/whi...2399_a_7c470_a_7c5115_a_7c1003499&shoppingcom

My first thought was to hack up an existing LED string but thought the
flickering led would look better. I would also love to make it DC. Most AC
LED Xmas lights don't use a bridge rectifier so if you move you head back
and forth they kind of strobe.

 

[Cliff Hartle]

Well, if you need 60 of them, then for about $7.50 a pop and over a man-

week of design time (which ain't free) you can build them yourself.

Not sure if I made myself clear, I don't want to make my own set of Tes
lights I want to use the same LED that they use to make a set of candle xmas
lights into flickering LED's vs the minature 12volt lights they are now.

So either I can get the LED component loose by itself or just gut some pre
made tea lights.

 

[Cliff Hartle]

http://evilmadscience.com/component/content/article/189

 

[Cliff Hartle]

Good find! Perseverance pays.
I am saving this link.

Tom

When I found this site I was like where has this site been all my life. It
only took me year.

I so want an Egg Bot. Also the mini breadboards look something I would
want.

They also have a ton of stuff to do with their stuff. Like using the
flicker LED to drive a 1W LED to make real fire light. I had a project last
year where I needed "stage fire" in a Sousaphone. I could have hooked up
some small multi LED flashlights and have been set.

I spent all afternoon reading and checking out their youtube videos. I
better be carful before I get fired.

 

[Cliff Hartle]

I and some friends have a patent on making simulated fire light by
using random noise and filters to go from a a flickering candle to
the house burning down. Big fires look better with multiple channels.
I know it works fine in a small Freescale chip so you could a PIC or
any processor you like. It would be an excellent programming
exercise.


Are you one of those people who always has to use a microcontroller when
most people would use a simple circuit with only a couple of transistors?

Well if you see my last post you will see I found a source and much more.

One thing I found in my research was someone gutted a LED tea light and it
was one with the external chip. They hooked it up to a mini speaker and it
played "Happy Birthday". Seems they used surplus musical birthday chips to
make their fire.

 

[Jasen Betts]

One thing I found in my research was someone gutted a LED tea light and it
was one with the external chip. They hooked it up to a mini speaker and it
played "Happy Birthday". Seems they used surplus musical birthday chips to
make their fire.

Problably Disney sued, and they couldn't do anything audio with their "happy
birthday" chips.

 

[[email protected]]

I wasn't aware that Disney acquired the copyright.

s/Disney/Time Warner/

 

[Cliff Hartle]

s/Disney/Time Warner/

Yes Warner does own the copyright, Warner/Chappell. Not Disney, not Time
Warner.

 

[[email protected]]

Yes Warner does own the copyright, Warner/Chappell. Not Disney, not Time
Warner.

Seems to be some disagreement.

http://www.eldercountry.com/lawyer/may08.shtml

 

[Cliff Hartle]

Yes Warner does own the copyright, Warner/Chappell. Not Disney, not Time
Warner.

Opps Warner/Chappell or what ever it is now appears to be part of what ever
Time Warner is now.

 

[Cliff Hartle]

Seems to be some disagreement.

http://www.eldercountry.com/lawyer/may08.shtml

Yea I figured all the company connections after I posted.Still its not
Disney. Disney did license it for a movie.