Intro:

    Back in November of 2002, Greg “BuSy” Sowell, made his first mod appearance on the net. Basically, he took a DC powered Christmas light set, and powered it by USB. Stroke of genius? I think so. Greg, like many modders come up with ideas, that cause us to re-think what modding is all about. So, with that in mind, I give you a slightly enhanced version of his original debut.

    Now Greg has done some strange stuff, and he has also gained major recognition for his work with mini-ITX PC's. Let's go ahead and revisit November of 2002, with slightly larger pictures now, and delve back into the mind of a true genius, that drives this enthusiast filled world of ours.


On a quick note:

   I've edited it, to more fit our style here at the site, but not too much has changed, except I've added some stuff here and there for clarity. It's still all Greg, and his wacky ways were even apparent back then.


Disclaimer:

    Before I get started, I have to say that I take no responsibility for what you do with this information. If you break something, then tough stuff, it’s your problem, not mine.


Let's do it!:

    To get an idea of what made me want to do this, you simply have to know that I have this fascination with making ordinary objects run under the power of the pc. I was walking around a local dollar store with my fiancé, (now wife) she loves it when I say that, when I saw this package of Christmas lights that ran off of battery power. A light bulb went off in my head, or well at least a Christmas light. Man, that was corny. These things run off of 2 C batteries, and I was thinking I could give it a try at a fresh mod, and if it didn’t work, I only spent a dollar on them anyway right?


Materials Needed:
     · Battery powered Christmas lights
     · USB cable (from any device)
     · Heat shrink tubing (optional)
     · Volt Meter


Doing it:

    Once I got back to the lab, the bedroom, I disassembled Johnny 5. The plastic battery housing just pulled apart. You can then tell which wire goes where. (Positive and negative) Be sure to leave some slack in your wire so you can easily reuse it on some other project if you wish, and it makes it easier to work with. Too much wire is easy to work with, too little is not fun. I marked which wire went to the positive, with a piece of scotch tape. My original plan was to run them from the power supply, but then I thought that wouldn’t be practical at all. Hey, why not USB?! I went to the save-a-lot, and picked up a $5 USB cable and headed home. If you can find a $2 USB mouse, or any piece of junk with a USB connecter on it, then good, the cheaper the better.

(1) Cheap USB cable	(2) Battery compartment from lights

(3) Shiny shielding	(4) The wires are free!

    Next, I chopped the device connecter off of the USB cable, and stripped the jacket back. Inside you will find that the outer part of the connecter is connected to stranded wire that is just inside of the jacket. This is what I used for my ground. I pulled the stranded wire together and twisted it. There, of course, are 4 inner wires surrounded by a tinfoil jacket. Pull this jacket off and trash it. I stripped the most logical choice for the 5-volt power, which was the red wire. I plugged the USB into my puter and tested the wires with my trusty voltmeter. Sure enough, the red was the one I was  looking for.

(5) Yup, got the right wires

(6) Heatshrink before seal	(7) No soldering here

(8) All done

    To clean up the job, I decided to use some heat shrink tubing, which can be picked up at any hardware or automotive store. Note: be sure to put the heat shrink tubing on the wire before you connect the wires. Although I’m sure, none of you would forget to do this. J After that I twisted the wires together and put electrical tape over my positive connection. I put just enough tape to cover the bare wires. You could always solder them together, but I’m way too lazy to do that. Then I put some small heat shrink tubing over the connections and heated them with a lighter. Most people use a blow dryer, but once again I am too lazy to walk to the bathroom. Next I pulled my large heat shrink tubing down over the whole assembly to clean up the job.

(9) It's alive!	(10) Yup, much more festive now

    Then it’s just a matter of plugging in the USB cable. Simple as pie. After I had the lights running for a while and decided to go to bed, I realized I needed a switch. I went to my local hardware store and picked up a dial cord switch, although, any switch you have lying around will work. The installation instructions are on the back of the switch box, and should take the average human about 20 seconds to install.

(11) Dial switch

    I also found a different style of lights, but I liked the smaller ones better. You can see what I mean by picture 12.

(12) Pretty colors	(13) Cat tested, mod approved

Closing/Durability test:

    I would like to say thanks to all the cats that helped me test the durability of this. Brak is the orange cat, and Space Ghost is the big white one. Thanks for reading my mod. I hope you have a Merry USB Christmas!


Editors closing notes:

    Jim Adkins, the owner of Monster-Hardware, was kind enough to help me out in my growth, and give me Greg after the original publish of this. At that time, I desperately needed staff. And in all honesty, that is where Jon came from too. I wanted to republish this for a few reasons. One, this mod is Christmassy. Two, some of you may have forgotten about Greg's first mod, or never have seen it. Three, I'm running out of things to publish. No, just kidding on number three.

    Thanks go to again go to Jim for permission to republish this, and also Greg for being the wacky guy that he is. In closing, like Greg said, "Have a Merry USB Christmas!" ~David Kroll


 

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