Turn an Old Lantern Into a LED Solar Lamp With Realistic Flame!

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Hello fellow makers,

A few months ago I bought some solar motion lights for my garden and as expected they only lasted a few weeks before dying.

Being a tinkerer I knew I had to find a way to reuse them as the solar panel was still in perfect condition ( in case you are interested... It is the Li-ion battery that dies in these solar lamps as they have no protection circuit so they over charge/discharge and self-destruct )

Luckily I had some old rusty paraffin lamps just begging for a makeover. So in this Instructable I will be showing you how I turned these rusty ol' lamps into some solar powered LED lanterns with a very realistic flame to boot.

Let's get started...

Supplies

To replicate this Instructable you will need the following:

Access to a 3D printer

Amazon - Ender 3

3x Flickering candle 5mm LED's

Amazon - Candle LED

Warm white 5mm LED

Amazon - WW 5mm

100ohm resistor
2.2k-10k ohm resistor

Amazon - Resistor kit

1n400* general purpose diode

Amazon - Diode kit

a Small 5-6V solar panel

Mine is 6V 45mmX80mm

Amazon - Solar panel

18650 Lithium ion battery

Amazon - 18650 battery

TP4056 charging board with protection

You want to make sure it is the board with the protection circuit.

Amazon - TP4056

S9013 PNP transistor

Amazon - Transistor kit

Wire for connecting the solar panel, led's and battery to the circuit.
Clear coat

Amazon - Clear coat

*As an Amazon Associate I receive a small percentage from sales made through provided links at no cost to you, this helps fund future projects.

The Old Lantern:

First thing we need to do is to disassemble and clean all the grime off the old lantern.

I start by taking out the glass lens, which is done by pulling on the lever like you would to light it on fire. After that I removed the wick holder and the glass cage, the cage is simply held in place by a tab bent around the lever.

Next I took some Luke warm water with dishwashing liquid and a scrubber and gave it a thorough scrub down making sure to get rid of all the loose paint.

Also make sure to rinse out the old paraffin holder well.

Making Space for the Electronics:

We are going to need a space to fit all of the electronics into.

I used my Dremel with a diamond cut off disk to cut open the bottom of the lamp where the paraffin use to be.

This will give us enough room for all the electronics and battery.

Next we will need a lid to close it back up and keep water and dirt out, as always the 3D printer comes to the rescue.

I made a lid that will snap over the seam on the bottom of the lamp and also has a holder for the battery and charger.

The lid was printed using SBS filament to give us a strong weather resistant part with some flexibility in order to snap over the ridge.

My print settings are as follows:

Material: SBS

Speed: 40mm/s

Temp: 220 degC Nozzle and 85 degC Bed

Nozzle: 0.5mm

You might have to adjust the size of the model depending on the size of your lamp, although they should be a fairly standard size.

Downloads

LED Latern.stl

A Protective Coat:

After cleaning your lamp will be very susceptible to rust so we will need to give it a protective layer.

I used some automotive clear coat thinned with lacquer thinners in a 50/50 ratio that I then applied to the entire body of the lantern using a small airbrush.

You can also use a can of clear coat but it will be more difficult to get into all the nooks and crannies.

Leave it out in the sun to dry completely.

The LED Flame:

Now for our pièce de résistance the LED flame.

The three LEDs with the long lenses are the flickering candle LEDs and the one with the short lens is the normal warm white LED.

We start by bending the legs of the LEDs as pictured, two of the flickering ones gets bent 90 degrees, the remaining one gets bent into a "square" and the normal warm white stays as is.

The warm white led gets soldered in underneath the flickering led and then we solder the two 90 degree bent LEDs to either side.

Make sure of the polarity of the LEDs, all the anodes have to be connected together and all of the cathodes together.

I finished it off by soldering a wire to the cluster of LEDs and covering the connection in heat shrink tubing.

Connect a battery to it and test it out, you will note that because of the fluctuations in current draw by the flickering LEDs the normal warm white led will now also flicker along with them adding to the effect.

The Electronics:

There are a few different designs available on the internet regarding the use of a TP4056 module as a solar light controller but many are unreliable and worst of all you lose the protection circuitry.

With this circuit there is unfortunately an additional part but it is still super simple, easy to solder and most importantly you keep the protection circuit for the Li-ion battery.

Attach the Solar Panel:

Since this solar panel already had a nice plastic backing I decided to mount it directly as is to the lantern.

I ended up mounting it to the top hanging loop of the lantern using some black hot melt adhesive ( these black glue sticks have a slightly higher melting point compared to the clear ones and has some crazy good adhesion) this allowed it to tilt and spin around enabling you to position it so that it makes full use of the available sunlight.

Once the panel is attached you can route the wires of the solar panel through the side arm of the lantern to the bottom where your electronics are housed.

Assemble the Electronics:

Now that we have the wires available from the solar panel we can do the final assembly of the electronics.

Solder on the solar panel wires to the positive and negative input of the charging board and adhere the 18650 battery and charging board to the lid.

Then you can feed the LED

LED Flame Diffuser:

To hide the LEDs and defuse the light I used a clear/milky white hot melt glue and spun it around the led cluster. As it cooled down I shaped it to resemble a flame.

I also used the hot melt glue to seal off under the wick holder so that water and dirt won't enter the electronic compartment.

Enjoy!

I hope you guys found this Instructable helpful and if you have any questions please feel free to leave me a comment bellow.

Turn an Old Lantern Into a LED Solar Lamp With Realistic Flame!