My grandparents live in the same village as me, but only at the other end of the street. To the best of my abilities and capabilities, I try to visit them, to help them in everyday life and in the household.
Once, my grandmother complained to me that the old house number plate had fallen off and asked me to make a new one. And then at night the streets are dark, and her house at the end of the street, suddenly what happen, call an ambulance, they suddenly will not find ...
To order a new plate with the name of the street and house number in the printing center is a lot of intelligence and even a lot of money is not necessary. A week later, being at work in the city, drove in, paid, and took a new plate.
The guys made a good nameplate from thick, white matte plastic with beautiful blue letters.
It was already going to my grandmother to attach her plate to the house, but the idea arose to make a backlight so that at night the house number was clearly visible. Of course, I decided to put the backlight from the LEDs, something like two pieces of an LED strip and a 12 volt adapter. And then I thought that such an option would not work. Who will turn this backlight on and off? Grandparents are already aged, go bad. You can, of course, put some kind of photo relay, but again, you will need to take an extra outlet, pull the wiring from the house under the roof. And it’s difficult for grandmother to explain that these “bulbs” in the backlight consume very little electricity, and a big bill for the light will not come.
And the most important rule - the idea of “new, useful from the old, useless” and, if possible, free of charge, must be respected.
Searching in the garage in the corners and shelves, I found several broken solar-powered LED lights. We have many summer residents use these luminous Chinese "toys" sticking from along paths and beds. It looks beautiful in the evening, and you will not get lost on the way to the toilet or bathhouse.
To create a highlighted grandma’s house number, I needed the following:
1. Actually, a plate with text made of frosted plexiglass or plastic
2. Four wooden slats, the dimensions of which are determined by the plate
2. Plywood for the bottom of the housing of the appropriate size
3 Several unnecessary solar-powered luminaires (3 or more)
4. Shiny tape
5. Nails No. 50 (ten)
6. Small nails (No. 15, No. 20)
When these flashlights were new, they looked something like this:
But they got to me already in this form:
The device of the Chinese flashlight is simple, to the ugliness, a small board with an LED and a microchip, two wiring to a 1.2V 120 mAh battery, and two wiring to a solar battery made of a piece of glass with spraying.
So let's get started.
First, we put together a rectangular box of small depth from the rails according to the size of the plate. Nail the plywood (bottom) and do not forget to make two holes in it at the corners to fix the box to the house.
We glue the resulting box with shiny adhesive tape from the inside, and also from the outside, because I did not want to paint the wood, and there was nothing.
We carefully pick out the solar battery and the board with the controller and LED from the case. Extend the power wiring with any suitable wire and isolate them. We glue the solar elements on the front side of the plate, after making holes for the wires with an awl. In my case, I decided to stick them directly on the number 7, since the size of the glass was suitable.
We attach the controller boards with hot-melt LEDs to the bottom of our makeshift box.
Using small cloves, we attach the plastic plate to the finished box.
This is how it looks in assembly.
Turn off the lights in the garage and check how everything works.
Grandparents were very happy about the new nameplate and were surprised that there were no wires and batteries, that “it charges itself and then it shines itself”, that they just have to do it, how to walk around and enjoy what beauty they have on their house.
To my great regret, I could not get permission from my grandparents to publish photos of their homes on the Internet, for which I ask readers to generously excuse me.
The two-year operation of the "self-luminous" number proved the right of this idea to life.
About the disadvantages:
In summer, the daylight hours are long, and the built-in battery charge is enough for the backlight to work all night. But starting from the month of October, the duration of daylight hours is significantly reduced, the charge power decreases, and in February, for example, the backlight lasts no more than 4-5 hours.