Old Tyme Glass Lights...

I inadvertently stumbled on this while making a Newton's Cradle.

LEDs fastened to marbles create wonderful illumination...

1: I dislike blue LED simply for the fact that they hurt my eyes at night.

2: I use them because I have a surplus of 200 of these demon lights and I do not want to waste something that I like on an experiment. OH... and they tend to photograph really well.

3: You cannot drill a hole deep enough into a glass marble to accept an LED! They always crack at less than 1/8 of an inch

4: the interface between the cut LED and Ground Glass is optically good and gives excellent light transfer to the Marble.

5: The Glass marble is a lens which diffuses the light.

6 This is an LED modification and is used wherever you would use a standard LED. You will connect it as you would any other LED.


CHALLENGE!!!

So certain I am that you cannot drill a hole deep enough into a glass marble to accept a 5mm LED... that I will gift the first person that can show me a picture of 2 working drilled glass marble LEDs, drilled using supplies available to a regular person at a minimal cost... a 1 year PRO membership to Instructables ( if that is acceptable to the overseers of this excellent site)

You will need:

Glass marbles
LEDs
Cyanoacrylate glue
and an abrasive cut off tool

Carefully cut the tip off af the LED

Be sure to leave enough material above the internal workings. I just remove the rounded tip. This is done with a Dremel with an abrasive cut off blade.

A grinding stone is used to create a rough spot on the glass marble.

Place a drop of Cyanoacrylate glue on the marble then place the cut LED to the glue. Press for recommended time then leave to cure.

Once the glue has dried....

I found that boring a hole slightly less than the diameter of the marble in the interface will allow the marble to act as an indicator when lit.

I had unusually good success with this one despite my absolute hatred of blue LEDs...


Enjoy the old tyme feel of the light...