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Pummers as holiday ornaments
Putting BEAM to use for your holiday plans



This past Thanksgiving (for non-US folks, this is a local autumn holiday), I was wandering through Santa Fe with family and spotted some interesting ornaments in a (closed) shop window -- ornaments made out of LEDs!

It occurred to me that this would be a great application of BEAM technology -- couple an LED ornament to a nocturnal solar engine, and you'd have a great present / Christmas tree ornament / mantle dressing. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, here are some drawings of what I saw (please forgive my lack of artistic talent, click on any image for an enlarged version):

You could, of course, do something similar with any religious design of your preference (cross, menorah, etc.). In each case, the base would consist of a small solar cell and a nocturnal solar engine. The only skills required are some basic construction and soldering skills (make sure the LED polarities are all aligned in the same direction). Note that in the case of the ornaments I saw, their frames were just the LED leads soldered together, and the bases were non-BEAMish. For tree ornaments, you'd probably be better off to put the solar cell in the center of the design, with the solar engine circuitry hidden behind it.


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Copyright © 2001 Eric H. Seale