Suspended Christmas star window decoration

A star designed to hold a LED noodle which can then be suspended over a window to create a great Christmas decoration
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updated January 8, 2024

Description

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I wanted a Christmas decoration for the window at the front of the house and came up with this. It's a set of twelve of these stars suspended on thin wire from a single wire across the top of the window. I ran it off mains power with a 12V adapter, and then used a voltage regulator to step it down to the 3.3V needed to power the LED noodles. I put the voltage regulator in a separate box (not shown here) that hides behind the curtains at the side of the window.

Parts used/needed:

  • 12 printed stars
  • 12 printed lids
  • 12 M2 bolts
  • 12 M2 square nuts
  • 12 LED noodles (model is sized to take the 300mm ones from Cool Components https://coolcomponents.co.uk/collections/leds/products/flexible-led-noodle-warm-white-2200k)
  • 12 resistors for regulating current to LED noodles (I used 7.5 ohm)
  • 12 lengths of thin wire - I used transparent 2-core 28 AWG
  • One length of larger wire to go across the top of the window - I used some transparent 2-core 14 AWG that I already had, but I'm sure other options would work
  • 12 t-tap wire splice connectors for attaching the vertical thin wires to the horizontal larger wire
  • A way of stepping mains power down to the 3.3V needed to power the decoration

Note that each star consumes about 80mA so the power consumption isn't large, but the voltage regulator may still get quite warm, depending on how many stars you're powering. I put a small heatsink on the voltage regulator which seemed to manage the excess heat adequately.

The small star at the top of each printed part hides the solder connectors that attach the vertical wire to the LED noodle, as well as the resistor. An M2 bolt and square nut holds the lid on the small star to hide the connections.

The LED noodle is inserted into the star by feeding the two end pins through the small holes in the top of the star (ensuring you get the polarity right), then pressing it in to the channel that makes the star shape. The channel is sized so that it holds the noodle snugly in place.

Having done the solder connections, the resistor and the wires can be fitted into the small star as shown in the picture. The lid for the small star has locating tabs on three of the points. The two points without a locating tab are for the top (where the wire enters the star) and the point of the star that holds the resistor.

I really enjoyed designing and building this decoration and it got loads of compliments from people that visited the house over the holidays, but I'm sure there are ways of improving on this design so I look forward to seeing what other people do with it.

 

Model origin

The author remixed this model.

LED Noodle Snowflake
learn.adafruit.com

Differences of the remix compared to the original

Instead of a single large snowflake, I turned it into a set of smaller stars that draw relatively little current and can be used in groups to create a window decoration.

License