Wrote this for over at m2k2, but it works just fine here too. Might get some more appreciation in a hacking community too…USBCD36 wrote:My latest creation is complete!
Geek accent lighting!
…or more descriptively, BAWLS cold cathodes lights! Yes, I know it's been done many times over (also with LEDs, as my friend made for me for my birthday, along with a nice cold regular bottle of BAWLS), but I did something different (and relatively stupid). Instead of running the wires through the cap and into the bottle, I drilled holes through the bottles at the bottom to fish the wires through. At least that's what I intended to do… Turns out that BAWLS bottles are more brittle than chipped canning jars (my practice medium), and when you drill a hole in them, the bottle splits around at the point of the hole, and needs to be superglued back together. This ended up being a nice feature as well (though it does make them slightly more ugly), since you can stick the cathodes in through the base instead of through the neck (which requires sanding of the acrylic cube endcaps).
Overall, I think they look kinda nice, even with their flaws. Oh, and if anyone is interested, I got the BAWLS from a LAN party and the CCFLs (and extension cables) from PCToys.com (CCFLs and cables). Including shipping, it was a flat $16 (not including the bottles).
Another thing: expect somewhat slow download speeds too, as the upstream is somewhere around 50 KB/s on my DSL connection.
