A proper mad science laboratory requires mysterious potion-filled test tubes lit with eerie colors to flicker in thier rack. Build this display for maximum creepy effect!
Flourescent pigments mixed with water make for a creepy-cool luminescent potion when lit with ultraviolet light, especially as they flicker and blink based on a microcontroller pattern you design.
You can use this technique to make test tubes glow in a standard test tube rack, or build your own from black iron pipe fittings and laser-cut acrylic for some next level spookiness!
Here's a very nice user-submitted Menorah version.
Don't have any UV pigment? No problem -- get some tonic water instead! The quinine in tonic water fluoresces a cool blue color under UV light.
Lighted Test Tube Parts
- Adafruit Feather 32u4 Basic Proto or Feather M0 Basic Proto
- Terminal Block FeatherWing
- UV/UVA 400nm LEDs 1 per test tube
- USB cable A/micro B
- Power supply
- Test tube rack or build your own as detailed later in this guide
- Pyrex test tubes and matching stoppers with holes
- Stranded wire or jumper wire or cloth covered wire (for style points)
- Fluorescent UV pigment or tonic water
- Wire housings (1x2 size) optional for LED wiring
- Heat shrink tubing
Optional Test Tube Rack Parts
- 3/16" thick black acrylic sheet 12"x16"
- Wooden base, roughly 20"x9"x1-1/2"
- 8 ea. #12 x 1-1/4" wood screws
- 4ea. nylon M3 hex spacers and screws
- 2 ea. 1/2" threaded pipe nipple, 6" length
- 4 ea. 1/2" threaded pipe nipple, 8" length
- 2 ea. 1/2" threaded pipe fitting, 90 degree elbow
- 3 ea. 1/2" threaded pipe fitting, coupling
- 4 ea. 1/2" threaded pipe fitting, locknut
- 2 ea. 1/2" threaded pipe floor flange
Page last edited March 08, 2024
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