The weekend from the 2nd to the 5th of June 2022 will see Her Majesty The Queen celebrate 70 years on the throne - and we’ll be celebrating with her.
You know what this calls for? A shiny polypropylene crown covered in LEDs, of course! Follow along with Emma and make your own Jubilee crown!
We Used:
- 0.8mm Black Polypropylene
- 18 x 3mm Blue Diffused LEDs
- 21 x 5mm Red Diffused LEDs
- 3 x 10 Ohm, 2.5W Wirewound Resistors
- 1 x 3xAA Covered Battery Holder with Switch and Leads
- 3 x AA Batteries
- Lengths of Wire
- Soldering Kit
- Metallic Spray Paint
- Hot Glue and a Hot Glue Gun
- Laser Cutter
- This DXF
Step 1 - To The Laser Cutter:
Cut out the DXF! Make sure to cut the outside perimeter last so nothing shifts during cutting.
Step 2 - Painting The Crown:
Use Spray Paint to colour the outside faces of the crown a metallic colour (or any colour you like! How cool would a multicoloured crown look?)
Make sure to colour the inside faces too. At this point, you can also improve the bend of the polypropylene by using a heat gun to form it in to approximately the correct shape.
Step 3 - Fixing The LEDs To The Crown:
Glue the LEDs in place to secure them. Hot glue works great for this! Make sure to leave all the long legs (positive) on the same side - I put them on the left of the
Step 4 - The Curcuit:
Solder together the circuit! To make this easier for yourself, use the colours in the diagram (not like the photo though, I went a bit off-piste with my wire colour choices.)
The circuit is simpler than it looks. The red and blue LEDs each have separate parallel circuits but connect to the same negative. Note the two resistors in parallel on the positive side of the red LED circuit. This reduces the heat produced by the resistors - important so the crown doesn’t burn your head.
Each LED is marked with positive and negative - make sure to pay attention to your own LEDs and where the positive and negative legs are. The key below the diagram will help to identify where things should go.
Step 5 - Finishing Up:
Final assembly! Grab the hot glue again and get everything stuck down. When done, you should have something similar to ours above.
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