I r made a star....

[Reggie]

Hi all, in the never ending quest for cheap mods, I thought I'd share a little one with you, no pictures I'm afraid, but it's such an easy mod you don't really need any

Disclaimer: If you burn yourself with hot glue, seal your eyelids with super glue, or destroy your telescope, damage anything, burn down your house, maim, injure or kill yourself or anyone else in attempting the following tutorial, I will not be held responsible.

today I made an artificial star, to achieve this I needed a few things:

LED tea light (try and get white ones that don't flicker, ebay, poundstretcher etc. I got mine ages ago for £2 for 5 I think it was), they look like this:

http://www.bombayharbor.com/productImage/0541968001261542969/Led_Flashing_Tea_Light_Candles.jpg

1x white 5mm LED, only if you can't find non-flickering white led tea lights(ebay, maplins, should be pennies really)

1x film camera pot (I used an oval shaped fuji film pot for mine, as it's all black, got it from my local newsagents that also does film processing)

tools needed:

soldering iron

5mm drill

sewing needle

hot glue gun or super glue (be careful with hot glue, it is by its nature HOT!!)

craft knife

small screwdriver

this tutorial assumes that you've got hot glue, anywhere that you see hot glue being used, you can also use super glue in the same places but obviously won't need anywhere near as much

The LED tea light is going to be our power source, it's got a neat little on/off button on the bottom and it's got a neat little battery compartment.

1. The first thing we are going to do is check the type of led used, so turn the tea light on and see if it flickers.

2. if it flickers then we need to desolder the existing LED and replace it with our white led, if it doesn't flicker then you can jump to step 3

2a. to desolder the LED we need to get the 2 parts of the casing apart, I ran a sharp craft knife between the outer casing and the base, you should be able to get a screwdriver between the 2 parts and turn to help the 2 pieces apart, they're held in usually by 2 plastic rods into 2 holes, you may end up just breaking these to get it apart, this isn't a problem, the hot glue will help keep it together once we put it back together.

2b. the led will have a bit of rubber to diffuse the light, you can cut around this using the craft knife and pull it off the led, you should then be able to remove the base with the led from the outer casing.

2c. desolder the existing LED, you'll probably need trim the legs on the new white led and then solder it in place, make sure you get the legs the right way round otherwise it won't turn on. Test that your led works by pressing the on/off button.

3. Now we have a steady light source, we need to make a couple of holes, take the 5mm drill and take the lid of your film pot and drill a hole in the centre.

3a. Once you've done that, we need to make the hole that will be our star, it's very important that the hole is round, so you'll need a steady hand and slow sustained pressure to make the hole, take your pin and the film pot and very carefully make the smallest hole possible in the centre of the bottom of the pot from the outside, you'll need to look inside the pot, with a light in there so that you can just see the pin emerge, you really want the smallest hole possible so that you won't have to locate your artificial star too far away. There is another method to making smaller holes but if you're careful then you may get away with just the single hole in the camera pot.

4. test everything together, put the lid on your pot, take your modded tea light and insert the LED in the 5mm hole in the lid, place your artificial star a suitable distance away, point your telescope at it, does it look small enough to be a star? is it a convenient distance from your scope? If it doesn't look small enough, then move the unit further away or if this isn't convenient you will have to use the 2nd method of getting a smaller hole (more about that later when I've actually done it myself )

5. Assuming everything is working well, we can put the unit together, push your LED through the hole in the outer casing of the tea light, push the LED (brace it from inside the outer casing) through the 5mm hole in the film pot, with your hot glue gun put a bead of glue around the led, hold it in place until it's sufficiently set.

6. put on the side of the film pot lid that will be facing the tea light casing, put 4 beads of hot glue equally spaced around the edge of the pot, and push it onto the outer casing of the tea light, you might need to do a bit of quick maneuvering to get the base of the led to go back into the tea light casing.

7. put the tea light back together, make sure that nothing is shorting (test the on/off button still works, or if it stays lit when you press the on/off button, it's shorting, move things so they don't short and try again), again with your hot glue, put a small dab either side on the base edge and squeeze the outer casing and the base together, wipe away any excess hot glue, hold until set.

8. clip your film pot lid to your film pot and enjoy your super cheap artificial star.

If your star is too big and you can't move it any further away, there is a method for using a pin and folded tin foil to make a super small hole, more details about that when I've actually done it, this is a work in progess.

Regards,

Reggie.