Sock It To Me Instructions

Overview

This little kit will knock your socks off! Anyone can put together this quick and easy kit, no special skills or tools are needed. This crafty decoration is created by twisting together a simple circuit with your fingers. In each kit we provide the following, all you'll need is a phillips (+) screwdriver. Full instructions are here!

1 - CR2032 Battery
1 - Battery Holder
4 - Flat Top RGB LED
4 - Red Wires
4 - Blue Wires
2 - Wood Screws
1 - Sock It To Me Ornament

About the Kit:

This super cute artwork is by Maria of A Needle Runs Through It, who also provided artwork for our Swirly Sheep and Sweater Weather ornament kits.

With this kit, we're bringing back old-school breadboards! You assemble it by sticking the LEDs through the board, wire-wrapping around them with the provided wires, wrapping the same wires around 2 screw posts, and also twisting the battery holder wires around the screw posts. This is a great activity for those new to electronics, or for old-school hacks that just want to have a bit of fun with a project that's quick and gratifying.

A Note on Battery Life:
It is very difficult to balance a love for All Things Blinky with small unobtrusive battery sources. We've provided a CR2032 battery and holder with this kit precisely because it's small and can't provide a ton of current (and is therefore much safer when accidentally shorted than a rechargeable lithium ion). But this means there's not a lot of overhead for the blue in each of the RGB LEDs. They start out very bright and rainbow-flashing, and then blue and magenta colors fade relatively quickly. Red, green, and yellow stick around for a lot longer, and then it diminishes to all red at the very end. Since these are holiday-themed, we were OK with this behavior. One CR2032 will generally last about 15 hrs until it completely goes out, so we recommend leaving it on for a few hours in the evening, instead of all day long. If you'd like longer battery life, you can use 2 AA or AAA batteries instead. You'll need a holder for them like this or this.

Sock It To Me Ornament Kit

14.95

How to Build

Printable Instructions

Unpack your Kit

Each kit has the following items included:

1 - Battery
1 - Battery Holder
4 - Flat Top RGB LED
4 - Red Wires
4 - Blue Wires
2 - Wood Screws
1 - Ornament

Screw screws into holes

Give each screw about 3 twists. You don't want them falling out but you want to keep enough room to wrap wires around them.

Place LEDs

Match the flat side of the LED to the flat side of the engraving. Alternatively you can also match the long and short legs to the flat side of the engraving. Long legs are positive and short legs are negative. The flat side marks the negative on the engraving so match the short leg to the flat side. Once all LEDs are in place, flip the board over.

Bend LED legs one going down and one going up (make sure to keep bending consistent on each LED (if you bend the negative leg down and the positive up repeat for all LEDS)

Wrap wire around LED legs

*Note: Do one color of wire completely before moving on to the other color (do all positives then all negatives)

You want to have the insulation as close the the LED as possible to avoid possible shorts. Wrap the wire around the leg 3 or more times then bend the leg flat. After the leg is flat bend it back towards itself at the halfway point. (Optional step is to cut off excess wire with wire cutters) Make sure you wrap all the positive legs with red wire and all negative legs with blue wire.

Wrap Wires And Battery Holder Around Screw

Once all of your LEDs are wrapped with wire, gather all of one color up in your hand. Line up the insulation so each wire is the same. Grab your battery holder and match the red wire with the red wires and the black wire with the blue wires. Give the wires a twist then wrap them all around the screw 1-2 times. Tighten screw to secure wires.