Concert Glowstick Wheel

In japanese idol fandom is normal for fans take glowsticks to their idol's concert.

As one of my favorite band was going to have a concert in my country I decided to make this.

First at all, I draw a sketch using all the measurements I did before and also defining wheel measurements.

Using SolidWorks I made the representation of the wheel with real measurements and also create coupling that i wanted to use for housing the leds.

I used pvc pipes since they are so cheap and also they are easy to use.

The radius of my circle is about 20 cm so i needed a pipe with a circumference bigger that 20 cm. I used this pipe which circumference is 35 cm. Like this pipe was too big, using a sharpie I made a line for only 25 cm so i could cut. I use a Dremel but any rotary tool will work.

As I needed a flat pvc using boiling water, a flat surface and clamps or something really heavy I made this PVC flat sheets

I cut the 3/4 pipe in 14 pieces of 7 cm each, I use a pvc cutter because it's such and useful tool. Also I draw the 10cm radius circle in the sheets

Using a Dremel I cut the circles and then I sand the edges. I draw a smal line to know where the circles should meet.

With 2 circles shaped and sanded I divided 360/14 to get the angle of any base in the circle so the glowsticks were equally distributed.

For this I used 3w high power led as the wheel were pink and white 42 leds for each color are needed.

For the structure of the column I used clips after straight them with a measured of where leds should be put some marks and then added some solder. Leds have positive and negative side, all the leds are connected in parallel (so + with + and - with -).

After soldered they should all look like last picture.

After measuring the lenght of wire that was needed I cut 14 wires of 4 different color so I can distinguish positive and negative for both pink and white.

Then soldered all in the right place and checked that all fits nice.

As we already had the base with the marked angles using a drill I made a hole right in the middle of all the angles then used it as a template for drilling the other circle.

Then drill the pvc pipes we already cut. Right in the middle and side to side.

Before any glueing I sanded the circle and applied lot of pvc glue for sticking the pvc pipes to the base.

As we already had the drills I only used the special drill bit to make countersinking for the screws and finally put the screws in.

For the led container I'm using this coupling from Poliflex, we need two for each glowstick so using epoxy i'm sticking two side by side. Check if every fits well.

Also I could not find any white and pink switch I painted two that I already had.

For this I use those cheap closed w/switch battery holder. I used 3 AA battery holder (2 of them) I took the switches apart.

As all the leds need so much current I'm connecting the batteries in paralel to have the same voltage but twice the current.

As it need a case using pvc sheets I cut it and made the perimeter of the holder, also made the drill for the wires. Finally I have glue it to the base using epoxy.

Using a pvc with the same process with boiling water I gave it the form needed. The using a drill bit I made the holes for it also made the drills for the two switches.

Using epoxy and screws I have glue it to the base.

Finally I got to the painting. Even when PVC is already white I decided to paint it white first so pink color will stick good. I also sanded all before painting. I gave it 4 layers of each color.

As I'm putting two different color I had to isolate one of them so they don't touch and made a short circuit.

I cover them with some sponge paper to difuse the light, Solder all wires to battery holders and to switches.

Here you can see some photos of the wheel, and also pictures of the wheel in the concert it was made for.

Also a video so you can see it.

I'm a hard Hello Project fan! <3