Again we are messing with the car and again it’s with UV lightning. This time, it’s the key.
Already the key had a poor excuse of a 1.5V light bulb and when pressing the key the light
would switch on so you easier can find the keyhole in the dark.
Now, a 1.5V is not enough to make a LED light up and the ones I use is supposed “ultra light”
and they need at least 3.4V to illuminate.
As you can see, there is no more room for a battery so I had to find some sort of replacement.
After a search for a cure I came across a so called “joule thief”.
A joule thief makes it possible for a diode to reduce light right down to 0.3V.
All you need is:
1 small ferrite core
1 transistor (BC547)
1 Light diode
1 resistor (1K)
And 1m thin cobber wire (approx 0.15mm)
Be sure that the ferrites core is of good quality as it influences the effect.
The first thing you need to do is to double- fold and coil the cobber wire.
It improves the effect and makes it a hell lot easier wrap the wire around the ferrite core.
When the cobber wire is coiled you need to wrap it 20 times around the ferrite core.
You need to be very particular wrapping the wire tight around the core else it won’t fit.
All you need to do now is solder it all together as on diagram.
If it does not light after the soldering you need to make sure that you’re connecting the ferrite coil and +/- proper.
And if you don’t find it small enough you can also make it with SMD components.
Now that the joule thief is compiled and you have tested that is works, all you need to do is assemble it.
I had to use the scalpel to make it all fit inside the key.
The finished result looks like this:
UV lightning now makes things look good.
Also, check out LED diode lightning to the car.