Light a Candle, Make a Torch!

Since living in my old flat and enjoying the wonderful power cuts it used to serve up periodically, I’ve come to appreciate the wonder that is the pocket-sized torch and candle light reading. Her majesty is always chuckling about my obsession with checking out portable lighting whenever we go to hardware or DIY places. I always insist it’s for camping trips so we can light our tent but I know she suspects it’s the power cut preparation thing.

She’s right, I just don’t want to admit it! 🙂

As you may or may not know, I’ve been trying with some very minor successes to teach myself electronics. I’m still wrapping my head around the maths but I’m trying! As an excercise to practice soldering, I grabbed a few parts I had lying around and made, you guessed it, a torch! Have a look:

It’s a little basic I know but when I presented it to Her Majesty, being the practical kind of girl she is, she loved it. Turns out she loved that is was hand made badly in about 5 minutes by her geek! 😉

If you’d like a torch of such wonderful (or better) quality, go have a go with a bit of stripboard, a superbright 10mm LED, a battery holder and a push button. Total cost for project: About £1.50 in spare parts. Bargain… AND you get to fiddle about trying to solder it correctly. What more could you want?