USB Mini Aquarium!

by Electronics Man in Circuits > USB

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USB Mini Aquarium!

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I am going to show you my Mini Aquarium powered via USB. I made this to sit by my computer on top of my desk and it is made for a betta, And I think one would look great in this bowl. Now the color you see in the first picture is NOT the only color this bowl can be, it actually turns on a combination of a red, blue, and yellow LED to make a color show. There will be a video and more pictures later on.

The Design

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In the pictures you can see the bowl that I used, which is called a Betta bowl.

Then I found a scrap piece of balsa wood and traced the top of my bowl onto it and cut it out. I cut the balsa wood into a half
moon shape so I would have a small opening so that I could still feed my fish without having to take the whole top off.

Then I found a small circuit board that had red, yellow, and blue leds on it and a controller that turns the LEDs on and off in patterns. I glued the small circuit board onto the balsa wood after cuttin a small notch for the LEDs to fit into. A switch was soldered onto the positive lead followed by a 47 ohm resistor, then I soldered the end of my USB cable to the end of the resistor, and the negative wire of the cable to the negative terminal on the circuit board.  

Finished!!!

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And were finished! Now fill your newly built USB aquarium with some nice gravel, add water, dont forget your fish!, and plug it in!!

Now if your confident in yourself that you built this right and no wires are touching, then plug it into your computer. BUT if you really dont want to fry your computer because the circuit is shorting out, then I would suggest that you test this out with your power supply first. I made a power supply from an old computer ATX power supply, and it just so happens... That it has a 5v output!!!
I am not responsible for your actions and if you fry your computer due to your limited soldering soldering skills,Well dont contact me, just have a nice talk with yourself :)

Thanks for reading!!! if you like it please vote for it in the USB contest.
And in case you were wondering what happened to the date in all of my pictures, My camera reset itself and I didnt reset the date. The Video and some more pictures are on the next step


Video and Pictures

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Here is the video and some more pictures of the finished product. I was very pleased on how it came out,  its very bright! For some reason the video makes it look like it isnt very bright, but the pictures are more accurate on the brightness. I just need a better video camera!