Cheap flickering flame lighting Effect L.E.D.'s

[NarrowMinded]

Anyone ever tear apart a battery operated "Tea Candle"? I have dozens of these around the house they come three for a dollar on sale around the holidays, when the battery goes dead they are useless because a new battery cost more then another three pack. I carfully take them a part solder on a 750ohm resistor to one leg and run them off of 12 vdc they flicker without a circuit board and you can place them anywhere you can put a typical size L.E.D. I put two in a 55gal drum with a piece of white tissue paper above them and the effect is perfect.

Just My 2 Cents

NM

[El Loco]

NM, Hey thats a great tip!    I'll have to keep that in mind as the Christmas decorations become available. Then to the dollar store for the booty
Thanks again Brother!

[renniks]

Could use one red LED and one yellow for added effect. Certainly way cheaper than manufactured 'hobo's campfire' effect circuit boards. Haven't seen 'Tea candles' for sale over here--perhaps another UK member can 'enlighten' me (sorry).

Eric UK.

[vroc3349]

That is a great tip.
Here is one I got yesterday.
Get your self a crapped out cell phone that has a vibrating feature.
The vibrator is done with a mini can motor.  You need to break, buy carefully crushing, the cam that does the vibrating but you wind up with a clean shaft to work with.
Handle the voltage with a resistor and let your imagination work.

vroc3349

[NarrowMinded]

I've done the cell phone scraping, Don't forget to get that Tiny High Quality Speaker if it's a Phone with a speaker function. A while ago there was another tips post which mentioned scraping out old vcrs for their motors, belts, flywheels, Nuts bolts screws and other assorted moving, goodies.

NM.

[JohnR]

Eric -

Check your local crafts stores there in the UK (eg. Michael's in the US). 

-John

[Linzthom]

Another great place for motors and gears is out of old CD Rom and DVD units.

[Jim Banner]

NarrowMinded,
Thanks for the suggestion.  I bought some of those electronic tea lights at the local dollar store yesterday - six bits each, including battery.  I use 3.3 volt lighting on my 0n30 layout, so will be trying them on that next.   After taking one of the lights apart, I found that it is a relatively normal looking 3 mm LED with the flicker circuit built in.  Other than the LED and the 3 volt lithium battery, the only other component is an on/off switch which I am sure will be useful for something.  My first project will be a 45 gallon drum with a fire in it.  (55 smaller US gallons = 45 larger Canadian gallons.)  I am not at all sure that would be appropriate for an early 20th century layout, but it is somewhere to start.

[NarrowMinded]

Hey Mr Banner,
glad to see you getting some use from my idea, there are so many places to use these, with the cost being so cheap I'm going to retro fit some of my wifes Xmas village to give them the flickering fire place effect.

Let me know how your projects turn out.
NM