PUMMERS

Standard “Hexpummer” from Solarbotics, the only difference is that I have changed the resistor which sets the “on” value so that it comes on when it is darker.

Solarbotics has a circuit diagram in PDF form for those who are interested in this excellent little pummer here.

This was the first pummer of my own design (not the circuit). It is constructed of brass developed into a pyramid shape to house the circuitry. The neck is made from brass tube from my local hobby shop and is quite long so that it could “Pum” over the window sill. I added a piece of larger diameter tube at the top so that the wire /solder joint would go round the bend.

This is a bright blue pummer and I must say it lights up my back yard for hours. I sometimes wonder if the neighbours think the police are regular visitors!

The surround for the LED is a piece of brass found inside a VCR, I can’t remember what it did but the LED fitted perfectly and I think it finishes the top off nicely. I just put a dab of hot glue on the back to keep it all in place.

I built the circuit on a piece of board using socket pins for the chip and resistors so that I could play about with values. The batteries are rechargeable 1.5v AA and the whole assembly is simply hot glued in place.

Hot glue is great to use as it holds stuff quite well but is easy to release if need be.

This is my second effort, not as pretty as the first but I just wanted to try a different colour LED, this is a red one I used the same circuit as the blue but changed a few resistors to get a longer pum but it doesn’t last as many hours on a charge.

The body for this one is a cocktail stick tube covered in silver sticky tape. The tube comes apart just about where the wires disappear. I just cut a small notch to allow them out. (see picture below)

 

The surround for this one is a small bearing found in, yes, a VCR, there was two on a shaft in the aluminium thing that goes round very fast with the video tape on it!! Again it fitted the LED perfectly. This time I made the neck stick out forward a little more and the larger tube was hidden from the front view.

The circuit below is the one used in these two and can be found along with others on solarbotics page.

I changed the chip for an HC instead of the AC and the solar cell on both is a Panasonic 24x22