Parts:
- 14 ultrabright blue LED's
- xbox 360 power supply case (probably alot of dead ones around)
- floppy drive coil and board (decoration)
- switch (rated for 120 vac)
- 10k ohm pot
- 3.6 volt transformer (take apart a wall wart)
- LM317
Circuit Design:
Fabrication:
Meet Rigid, the 10 inch compound miter saw with abrasive cutting wheel.
I used the saw to cut the metal conduit down to a length of about 16 inches.
The Insides:
I fabricated a metal bracket to hold the metal conduit. I also used this as the heatsink for the LM317.
The lamp will get power from a pc power cable. The heatsink compound was scraped off he old xbox psu and added to the 317.
The transformer is from a wallwart rated 3.6 vdc at 600 mA. I just cut off the placstic case using the dremel. You could leave the wall wart intact and add a jack for it, but I wanted to use the already existing xbox power conector.
The hole for the pot was already there (the indicator light hole). I had to enlarge the hole where the cord that went to the 360 used to exit for the switch to fit.
Everything is wired by this point with the exception of the leds.
The decorative floppy coil is attached to the top of the case, the metal conduit fits through the hole in the center.
The controls.
All of the LEDs have a common ground (the 14 bare copper wires that are all soldered together to form a bouquet of wires). An insulated wire is then solderet to the anode of the leds and wrapped around the bare copper wire.
This picture should help explain how the LEDs are conected.
It should read 12 guage copper wire and not 10.
Finished:
All of the "LED tentacles" are repositionable.
Night time:
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