Light Up Ghosts

This is an instructable on how to create LED powered ghosts for Halloween decorations. I came up with this idea while decorating our front yard for Halloween and I thought how great it would be to have little ghosts that lit up. These are powered with an old ATX power supply using the 12V signal.

3 LEDs - I decided on 3 LED's in parallel, the ones I had are 3mm, 10000mcd with a water clear lens (which I will sand to help diffuse the light).

150 Ohm Resistor - This value depends on the LEDs you are using, your power supply and what's available at your local store.

Christmas Ornament - Used to form the head of the ghost. I found these at Hobby Lobby, these are opaque to help diffuse the light.

White cloth - Used to cover the ornament to create the ghost.

1/4" square wooden dowels - these are used to create the skeleton of the ghosts. It will hold the LED and the ornament.

Glue. (Yellow wood glue for the dowel, hot glue for the ghost assembly)

Soldering equipment (Soldering iron, solder, helping hands, etc)

Power supply - I'm using an old ATX power supply but you can use whatever you have available.

Some copper wiring.

Wire Strippers/cutters.

Knife/Saw - To cut the wooden dowels.

Heat shrink tubing (Optional)

Breadboard for testing the circuit (optional)

Connect the 3 LEDs together in parellel, matching the anode and cathode legs together.

Then add the resistor to the anode leg.

Next, add a segment of copper wire to the resistors and another segment of copper wire to the cathode leg.

Finally, heat shrink your soldering to help protect it from the elements.

I cut my dowel down to about 20"

Then I cut two small segments about 1" long.

Glue these two pieces about 1" down from the end of the dowel on opposite sides of the dowel.

This going to create the neck of the ghost so that the ornament has some place to rest and this will also allow you to position the LED's closer to the middle to help evenly diffues the light to create a more even glow.

Now take the LED circuit that you have created and put it on the skeleton.

Place the circuit on the same end of the dowel as the neck as in the previous step and place the wires so that it straddles the dowel and glue the wires to the dowel to hold it in place.

I have bent the two outside LEDs to help spread the light around.

Take a section of cloth and cover the ornament with the hole facing straight down, this is where the lights will go in.

I covered the ornament and tied it off with a piece of string and then super glued the string down to hold it together.

Before you cover the ornament you could also paint a face on it so that it will shine through the material.

Once the glue has dried now you can add the ornament onto the top of the skeleton.

I tried yellow glue but it wasn't strong enough, so I just used the hot glue.

Connect the power and you're ready to go.

This is just a basic instruction to create a ghost.

There are so many other possibilities you could create with a photo resistor, ir sensor, solid state controller, 555 timer, different color LEDs, etc.

Hope you enjoyed this instructable.

Thanks for looking!