Adding fiber optic sparks to your fire takes it to the next level of awesomeness. Glowbys hair barettes are the perfect form factor and size, and can be easily added to your camp fire with a little spray glue.
Note: I'm using the older, discontinued version of Glowby hair clips since I had them on-hand. The newer versions will look slightly different, with an open/close lid instead of a sliding lid, but the wiring should still work the same way.
Glowbys run on two coin cell batteries, and they don't have an on/off switch (you have to remove the battery cover to turn them off). I wanted my fire to turn on with one button press and didn't want to have to fumble around with multiple batteries in the dark. Here's how I wired the Glowbys directly into my campfire's circuit.
Open the glowby up and pull out the batteries. Bend the LED leads up and solder a 100 ohm resistor to the positive lead, and a red wire to the other side of the resistor. Solder a black wire to the negative lead.
Bend the resistor around in an "S" shape so it fits neatly inside the battery space without shorting against itself.
Pull the metal bit out of the inside of the glowby's lid. Carefully close the lid, making sure your two wires are safely separated inside so they don't short out.
Now, splice your red and black wires into the red and black connector wires on your campfire.
Turn your campfire on and weave the fiber optics in and around your sticks. Gently secure them down with spray glue if needed.
Note: some spray glues may damage the fibers so be sure to test your glue on a small section first.
I also left a few sparks "hovering" above the fire. These sparks move and dance in a breeze or if I blow on the fire, adding another level of realism and awesomeness.
Page last edited June 17, 2016
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