On a few threads and In the chat room there have been a lot of new members inquiring about the best place to go for “cheap lights”. I thought I’d start a thread and let everyone throw their two cents in. I’ll get us started -here what I’ve found and where.
Deal$
Lighted sword (Halloween)
Lighted yo-yo (flashing LEDs)
Lighted baton (flashing LEDs)
Lighted whistle (flashing LEDs)
Dollar Store
Lighted infant toy with 4 chaser LEDs (great for the cyclotron)
Lighted candy container (on/off red LED)
Party City
Lighted wand with 8 chaser LEDs (great for the power cell and/or the thrower graph display)
As someone with absolutely no knowledge of soldering, wiring or creating your own LED displays (or for that matter sawing/cutting, molding, painting or anything besides glue… lots and lots of glue), and who is working on a budget / junk pack I’m very interested in this thread.
I found a Halloween Strobe at Wal-Mart in the… well, the Halloween stuff to use for the cyclotron lights. It has 5 LED’s (4 around the base and 1 in the middle) that each flash for about .5 seconds in a clockwise sequence.
It has an on/off switch on the back so you have to take it out of your cyclotron each time to turn it on and off. It was $3.99 locally and runs on 2 C batteries (not included). I used heavy duty velcro to mount it to my motherboard inside the cyclotron. I pull it off, switch it on and put it back in.
They also have these at local Kroger stores, however they are shiny silver (mine is orange) and may be from a different brand and thus work differently.
I am stumped for the power cell lights at the moment. I hear there are jogging and safety lights that have different strobe settings, and some mirror the power cell very closely. I absolutely cannot find anything like that locally and I’m afraid to get one off of ebay because detailed descriptions are sparse and they may not flash correctly. Also the light itself may be too long or short and not fit in my pack.
I hear safety / alarm lights for cars make a good substitute, however I don’t know how you could make it actually run in your pack. I hear you can wire them with 9-volt batteries, but I have no clue how and I hear the LED’s can pop when you do this due to incorrect or inconsistent voltage.
I did some experimenting the last few days because I’m in the process of modifying my foamboard proton packs. I bought the “pumpkin strobe light” that someone mentioned earlier, but in order to turn it on I had to cut a fist-sized hold through the back of the pack and thru the base of the cyclotron in order to flip the light on and off. So that was for one pack.
The other pack, I went to K-Mart to check out my options. I came acrossed a VERY nice find (and will post a picture of it this afternoon), in the Halloween section they have a set of lights (battery powered with an on/off switch) that blink randomly. They come with little plastic ghosts or skeleton heads covering the LED lights (they can blink while playing the Halloween movie theme or just the lights depending on the option you choose with the toggle switch). The plastic ghosts were VERY easy to pop off the lights. I’m gonna use them for the cyclotron lights and attach the battery pack with the switch (the switch is built into the battery pack) to the motherboard (gonna cut a small hole the size of the pack and velcro it in). About 12 bucks for the set. The only thing that was a bit annoying was that there were 10 LEDs that came with the set, so I taped two of them together for one area of the cyclotron. So I have two LEDs that I’m still not sure where to attach them to yet. Heres a link to something very similar to what they have at k-mart (all the skull heads btw for the set that are available there are all white):
For the power cell, I went to wal-mart and bought this long tube jogging light I found in the lightbulb section. It can either strobe or stay lit (blue) and is about 5 or 6 inches long. I’ll post a picture of that as well this afternoon (im at work at the moment). Very cheap alternatives.
I purchased some LED Santa hats, thay have a 5 LED chaser sequence (3mm LEDs running on 2 AA batteries). I tested it on 3 AA batteries, and it kicked up the brightness a good notch, and will light red 10mm LEDs no problem! Slightly fast but whaddaya want for cheapness?
I also found that the unused one will light the strip of 15 3mm LEDs from a Dollar Store knockoff lightsaber, enabling it to be used for the powercell! Only flashes, but with a half-tinted powercell window, its effective.
Lightsaber knockoff shown here (also cheapo pack lights):
http://www.gbfans just .com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7296&p=66634#p66634
The button on the hat is a momentary type, BUT as soon as you connect up the battery, the lights start up, so no real need to keep it.
Hobby Lobby. All of their Christmas stuff is out. They have a Battery operated LED set that flashes. I used two of them in my brother’s pack for both the powercell and cyclotron. I also used it for my trap’s front indicator and back light. They run about 5 bucks a set but Hobby Lobby always has really great sales so you might be able to pick a set for 2.50 or so.
Gak.. No hobby lobbies around here, and worst, no party city stores, for the power supply wands. 8(
I DID see those halloween lights mentioned above… they might make better/more accurate cyclotron lights then my skellie lights. I might look into that solution.
I went to a local Hobby Lobby yesterday and though there were TONS of Christmas items, as well as some battery powered Christmas lights, there wasn’t anything in this one that can be used as a convincing power cell light. Dang.
There’s no hobby lobboy near me, but I think I saw some of those red globe lights on ebay. Are they Sylvania brand, do you know?
In the chase mode, do they light up 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 just like the cyclotron lights? And in regards to the fill mode, how many lights are in the string?
Also, is just the globe red, or are the LED’s red? I imagine the LED’s are probably red too since those are cheaper.
20 red Sylvania LED battery operated globe bulbs on green wire.
General product information:
· Brand new, in original packaging, never opened, perfect condition.
· Each set of 20 lights is 10.5 feet (3.2 meters) long.
· Each set runs off of 2 “C” size batteries (not included).
· Bulbs are spaced 6 inches (15.2 cm) apart.
· For indoor use (120v 60Hz AC).
· These lights have 8-Chasing/Flashing modes:
1.) One light chasing;
2.) Twin light chasing;
3.) Sequential on;
4.) Sequential reverse fading;
5.) Sequential light on and off;
6.) Flash out from outside to center;
7.) All flash;
8.) Slow on-slow dim
$5!!!
