Ten Minute Christmas Tree With Light (no Soldering)

by pastecopy in Living > Christmas

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Ten Minute Christmas Tree With Light (no Soldering)

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Do you like Christmas....a lot? Do you want to get into a Christmas mood? This instructable shows you how to create a simpel, cheap, and fun Christmas tree. All you is need ten minutes of time, some basic tools and parts. Let's get started!

Watch the tree: http://youtu.be/qJJBUdHd4fk

Needs

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Here are the parts and tools you'll need:

Parts:
- fluffy pipe cleaner (longer = bigger tree)
- paperclip
- battery holder AA
- 2 button batteries 1,5V
- flexibel (0,14 mm2) electrical wire (about the same length as your pipe cleaner)
- rainbow LED (or any other LED)

Tools:
- wire cutter
- wire stripper
- knife (x-acto)
- Pliers (needle or roundnose)

Creating Custom Battery Holder

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Because our tree is small and needs two batteries to work we need a small battery holder. I've created one from some spare parts lying around. It is also possible to use a standard 2xAA battery holder.of course. It will give the tree a bigger "foot". Use some aluminium foil to make a good decorative covering of the foot.

You can create a custom battery holder  in four easy steps, illustrated by the photos.

1 Cut the AA-battery holder in to two parts 1/3 and 2/3 of the lenght. Make sure the spring is on the 1/3 side.
2 Make two opposite holes in the 1/3 parts so that two buttoncells will put the spring on tension
3 Create a holding pin by modifying a paperclip
4 Insert the buttoncells and put the holding pin in place. Trim the excess parts of the paperclip.

Preparing Other Parts

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Our little Christmas Tree is nearly ready for assembly. Just four things remain to be done:

1 Trim the electrical wire completly naked (yeah I know it's cold outside).
2 Remove some of the fluffy stuff on each end of the pipecleaner so the bare (twisted) wire is visible.
3 Twist the electrical wire loosely around the pipe cleaner.
4 Twist the pipe cleaner around your finger and mould it into a Christmas tree shape.

Assembly

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You are ready to assemble the Christmas tree:

1 Connect the short end of the LED to the pipe cleaner by twisting the two wires into each other. Do the same with the long end of the LED with the stripped electrical wire.
2 Connect in the same way the other end of the pipe cleaner to the paperclip. (negative pole).
3 Make a hook of the remaining end of the electrical wire and connect (hooking) to the positive pole of the battery holder. Use this as an on/off switch.
4 Put the tree on the table and tweak it to make it look like a regular Christmas tree.
5 Turn off the lights and enjoy!

Take your little Christmas-tree-friend everywhere and make people smile!