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Solar powered, flickering LED candles

Compassman | April 22nd, 2008

Popular Science has had two projects for LED candles. Theses were great, but they could be improved in several respects:

- Make the lights turn on in dim light and turn off in bright
- Have the 9v batteries recharge by sun light
- Make the light flicker

This would be a great addition to a patio or a porch. Any help in make this a reality would be greatly appreciated. I am soldering iron challenged.

2 COMMENTS on “Solar powered, flickering LED candles”

  1. Rich | April 28th, 2008 10:53 am

    That is a great idea…an easy way to achieve this would be to take apart a cheap solar light, inside is the circuitry for turning the light on in the dark and the solar panel. That is done by using a photoresistor (this allows electricity to flow when it is light out) You would need to use transistors to switch that around. To make it flicker, I would think you could make a timing circuit out of capacitors and resistors or program a small PIC to turn on and off an output to get a certain pattern.

  2. Alabamatom | April 28th, 2008 11:09 am

    Get a flicker candle from dollar general.
    Take the control module apart and modify to use an LED.
    Make an interesting candle base and incorporate the Solar panels into the design.
    Viola! Solar powered LED Flickering candle!

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