Zee-Mastor
Completed Billy DIY dollhouse "Naniwa's skewer shop"
It took 25 days, but my LED lights arrived yesterday from China! Only 11 cents (US). Last night, I whipped out the soldering iron and did wiring for dollhouse kushiage shop.
The time spent waiting wasn't wasted. I was working on some lanterns, because, dammit, I wanted the lanterns to light up. The original instructions and materials intended for them to be made from styrofoam balls covered with paper, but if I made them that way, I would not be able to insert LED bulbs inside.
So, I ended up making them old-school style: by winding cloth-covered floral wire around a marker and shaping to coils by hand to taper at the ends. Then I covered them in Japanese washi paper. I added a small wire handle at the top, so I could hang them from hooks on the roof.
I wired the LEDs in parallel. They were 3v each, at 20mA. Since there's 5 of them wired in parallel, they could all run on a single CR-2032 battery, and I had several battery boxes in my stash. It technically works, but a load of 5 LEDS is a bit much for a single coin cell, so I'm expecting the lights to run down the battery pretty quickly. The battery box is only temporarily taped to the wires. If I can find a dual CR-2032 battery box wired in parallel, and not series, I'd probably want to use that instead.
Lighted dollhouses look entirely different at night. The photo here is actually a pretty good replica of what it's really like to stop at a kushiage shop at night. The Japan I saw (Tokyo) is all skyscrapers, multi-floor mega shopping complexes, bright lights, traffic jams and trains. These kinds of traditional shops still exist in places like Shibamata and Osaka.
I love Japan! Maybe on my next trip, I'll venture beyond Tokyo.
Completed Billy DIY dollhouse "Naniwa's skewer shop"
It took 25 days, but my LED lights arrived yesterday from China! Only 11 cents (US). Last night, I whipped out the soldering iron and did wiring for dollhouse kushiage shop.
The time spent waiting wasn't wasted. I was working on some lanterns, because, dammit, I wanted the lanterns to light up. The original instructions and materials intended for them to be made from styrofoam balls covered with paper, but if I made them that way, I would not be able to insert LED bulbs inside.
So, I ended up making them old-school style: by winding cloth-covered floral wire around a marker and shaping to coils by hand to taper at the ends. Then I covered them in Japanese washi paper. I added a small wire handle at the top, so I could hang them from hooks on the roof.
I wired the LEDs in parallel. They were 3v each, at 20mA. Since there's 5 of them wired in parallel, they could all run on a single CR-2032 battery, and I had several battery boxes in my stash. It technically works, but a load of 5 LEDS is a bit much for a single coin cell, so I'm expecting the lights to run down the battery pretty quickly. The battery box is only temporarily taped to the wires. If I can find a dual CR-2032 battery box wired in parallel, and not series, I'd probably want to use that instead.
Lighted dollhouses look entirely different at night. The photo here is actually a pretty good replica of what it's really like to stop at a kushiage shop at night. The Japan I saw (Tokyo) is all skyscrapers, multi-floor mega shopping complexes, bright lights, traffic jams and trains. These kinds of traditional shops still exist in places like Shibamata and Osaka.
I love Japan! Maybe on my next trip, I'll venture beyond Tokyo.