# How To: Building a Better Tea Light



## loach160 (May 4, 2010)

Flickering candle tea lights are a staple of every home haunter’s inventory. They’re perfect for dressing up any prop or scene because they’re realistic (if you squint) and because they won’t burn the house down. Still, they can be a pain to operate. Replacement batteries aren’t cheap, and it can take quite a bit of effort to turn the lights on and off every night. Thankfully, we’ve found a solution to both problems!










In the Mr. Jingles garage we’ve started hard-wiring our tea lights. This process takes a tea light, speaker wire, a resistor, a soldering gun, solder, and a spare transformer (aka “wall wart). It also takes some electronics knowledge/skill. If you’re not comfortable with a soldering gun, unfortunately this may be a project you want to avoid.










First, pop the top of the light off just like you would if you were changing the battery. Then, remove the battery out and set it aside. Take a length of speaker wire and solder it to the piece of metal the positive side of the battery was touching. Then, take a second length of wire and prepare to solder it to the piece of metal the negative side of the battery was touching.

To reduce the voltage from the transformer (aka “wall wart”) to a level that can be used by the LED, you’ll need to add in a resistor. In our case we used a 560 ohms resistor to reduce power from 12 volts to three volts. To figure out your exact numbers, use the LED Wizard Array calculator.










Then, drill a small hole in the side of the tea light, run the speaker wires through, and snap the top back on. You’re half way there! The final step is to solder the speaker wires to the transformer. In our case we cut down a transformer from an old cell phone. Be sure to solder the negative to the negative and the positive to the positive.










As you can see in the picture above, we also included some male/female connectors in our circuit so we could fit the wires to the light through a small hole in our coffin. Now, we can flip one switch to turn the entire scene on and off. It makes setting things up so easy!


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## Darrin Plank (Sep 21, 2012)

This is exactly what i have been looking for. I am using hard wire but dont like the stiffness. Thank you for posting.


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## theedwin (Sep 25, 2008)

Great TUT! 

I have been doing this with a 3 volt wall wart (minus the resister) and had great luck, but it is very difficult to find 3 volt wall warts... Now I won't have to worry about this problem.

Thanks!!!


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## Mkozik1 (Mar 2, 2013)

Nice post Mr. Jingles! The link to the wizard will definitely come in handy as well!!


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## loach160 (May 4, 2010)

Glad I can help.


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## creeperguardian (Aug 22, 2011)

also try RCA cables too


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## Blarghity (Sep 2, 2012)

One important note to make is not all tealights are equal. While most I have use LEDs with the flicker technology built directly into the LED itself (and the one used in this tutorial is an example of that type) many older ones actually have several electronic components inside that produce the flicker. Along with the extra electronic bits, they also tend to be powered by multiple AG13 batteries instead of a single CR2032. These tealights can also have their typically weak color LEDs replaced with a newer, brighter standard 5mm 3 volt LED. 

I used one of these older tealights to illuminate an old railroad lantern that has a red glass canopy on it. The original LED was a pathetic red one that produced maybe 4500 mcd of light and just didn't produce good results for a lantern floating in the woods. I replaced that LED with a 30,000 mcd superbright white LED (no sense sticking with red when the glass canopy is already tinted that color). Now people can see it from a half mile away. This year, it gets a battery upgrade to a triple AA battery clip with 1.2v rechargeable batteries providing 3.6 volts, which is within the tolerance range of the LED.

Pretty much every tealight made today is the type loach160 used in this tutorial. But if you encounter some of the older type on the cheap, grab yourself a few. Somewhere down the road, you'll find yourself glad you did so.

I'll soon follow up this post with some photos of one of these older type electric tealight.


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## loach160 (May 4, 2010)

Hey everybody. I just looked back at this post and while we did say to solder the wires to the transformer, we did indeed solder them to RCA cables. If you look at the photos you'll see them. I will post later today a good photo of them as well were to buy them from.


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## Joven76 (Oct 5, 2012)

This tutorial is fantastic... Gives me just what I was looking for. Thanks!


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## loach160 (May 4, 2010)

Glad I can help. Thats what this awesome forum is for right.


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## loach160 (May 4, 2010)

Ok here is the website for the RCA jacks. http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=110&cp_id=11009
although they list them as DC Power Pigtail. While getting this page I also noticed DC Power Splitters and I will definatly be getting these for 
this years haunt. 
























I have ordered from this company twice and I never had any problems. I suggest buy in bulk.


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## budude (Jan 3, 2010)

One minor clarification - those are 'barrel' plugs - not RCA jacks but otherwise correct. The splitters are commonly used to drive security cameras from a common source so you find them with those as well.


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## loach160 (May 4, 2010)

Budude you are correct, but most people would look at you with 3 heads if you told them "barrel plugs" .


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