LED Jellyfish

This is my take on Elemental LED's Jellyfish Lamp. (See the link below)

https://www.instructables.com/id/Jellyfish-Lamp/

It measures 11cm across the dome and is about 20cm tall.

You will need:

-2LEDs
Electricalwire
-Batteries
Patience
-Glue Sticks and Hot Glue Gun
An Old Pen
-Fibrous strands of plastic (Fibre Optics)
-Soldering Iron and Soldering Wire
-Deodorant Can Top/Cap
-Electrical Tape
-Bubble Wrap
-Scissors
-Wire Cutters/Wire Strippers
-Clear tape
-A Clear Plastic 2L Soft Drink Bottle

For this step, cut the bottom of a 2 Litre bottle off and, using a soldering iron, create slits around the 5 protrusions as shown. DO NOT go all the way through the edge, but rather stop about 5mm above. This ring is important for the structure of the jellyfish. After you have done all 5, push them inwards until they look right. Glue in place with hot glue.

Optional: When done with this, sand the top of the dome with fine sandpaper as this will give it a blurry effect.

My LEDs had to first be taken out of a casing, but once you've got yours, fill about 1 cm of the centre (inside) of the dome with hot glue. Leave space enough for one LED bulb to be placed off centre in the dome, but bent to face it.

Glue an LED into this gap and bend the prongs towards the centre.

Next, add a lump of glue on the opposite side in the dome and glue another LED on top of it. do the same procedure with the prongs as the first LED. This LED should face downward toward the centre.

Solder wires to the prongs accordingly, you will need 4 wires, about 23cm long.

 For a central support, use a clear plastic tube from the outer cover of an old pen. Sand off any numbers or logos now. Thread all the wires into this tube and feed them through. When this is done, glue around the tube to hold it firmly in place. Remember which wires are connected where and throughout the building of this jellyfish, test that the LEDs work.

Also shown in this step, add bubble wrap to the outside of the dome and tape or glue the overlapping bits inside the dome. You only need to use 1 layer,with the bubbles facing inward.

For the stingers, use plastic light-carrying plastic fibre optics and make a sort of "fence" with them. To do this, just use some tape to hold them in place. Ensure that they are all parallel. Curl this into a ring and tape it as shown. The gap in the middle should be a bit bigger than the pen tube.

Once done with this, use your soldering iron to warp, bend, distort and shorten most of the stingers. Just touch the ends of them with the soldering iron and the tip will melt into a small ball. This makes all the difference to how realistic the complete jellyfish looks.

For 5 thicker stingers placed further out, twist about 8 fibres together and heat until they retain this shape. Do the same thing to the tips as before. Inthe last pic, you'll see I just used some hot glue to disguise the central support as a part of the jellyfish.

Put some glue on the tape ring with stingers and slide it onto the pen tube. Get it as close to the dome as you can. Make sure the down-pointing LED touches it. If it doesn't, link the two with more hot clear glue.

For the thicker ones, also just glue them in. Do this a bit further out though.

I also had some longer fibres, so I glued 5 of these to the outer edge of the dome for some added realism.

Using your soldering iron, make an appropriately sized hole in the centre of the deodorant lid and glue the pen tube in.

To complete the wiring, connect thewires to the batteries and add in a switch. I had to use 2 switches because the 2 LEDs refused to work in the same circuit. I glued some small watch cells together for the batteries because nothing else I had worked.

Your LED Jellyfish is now Complete!

This is what it looks like in the dark, as you can see, either LED can be turned on individually.