Description
We're bringing back some old school breadboarding fun! The Palm Tree is laser cut from MDF and the kit includes:
1 - Festive Palm Tree
1 - Length of Ribbon
1 - Battery Holder with ON/OFF Switch
1 - CR2032 Battery
2 - Screws
6 - Self Flashing RGB LEDs
6 - Red Wires
6 - Blue Wires
About the Kit:
Do you live in the tropics or southern hemisphere? Then the holidays are probably NOT full of snow! Carrie grew up in the Caribbean and celebrated many holidays on the beach, so we've provided this Festive Palm Tree alternative to the northern-hemisphere-centric Circuit Snowflake, for your holiday decorating and project needs. This cool artwork was designed by Leeborg!
With this kit, we're bringing back old-school breadboards! You assemble it by sticking the LEDs through the board, using wire-wrap to attach them to 2 screw posts, and also wrap the battery holder wires around the screw posts. Full instructions are here! 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.