# Road Gutter Drain LEDs



## David_AVD (Nov 9, 2012)

After last Halloween, my son suggested having light come from the road gutter drain outlets. I did a bit of a write up on some testing with a colour changing LED and a li-po battery.


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Neat idea! My wife gets the chills every time we walk by one of those things. I used to make fun of her, then one night a raccoon charged out of one as I ran by and I got a good 'jump' out of that! If we lived near one, I'd definitely consider this! A couple of additional thoughts spark into my mind:

1 - You might be able to tie a string or thin fishing line on the bag and toss it WAY in there - if needed. Then secure the string close to the opening...possibly under a small rock, stick of wood, or tie around a couple of bones left near the entrance. Then you could have an easy retrieval.

2 - For a single night of use, a 3.3V coin cell would likely power the LED for multiple hours, or a set of AA or AAA batteries would likely go for days. Not sure how expensive the li-po battery is, but if there is a risk of loosing it down the drain, the cheaper the better!

3 - I'm wondering what the smallest / most compact way to add some sound would be? MP3 player and a piezo speaker? Probably wouldn't need much, but seems like some clicks and bat-like squeaks coming from the drain would add to the 'ambiance'!


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## David_AVD (Nov 9, 2012)

All excellent ideas. I was thinking of making a slim smoke machine to go in there, but a check with my inspection camera showed that the narrow pipe is half filled with water most of the time.

The li-po cell was something I had laying about from a small model helicopter. You can get 240mAH 3.7V cells for less than AUD $2 on eBay and I prefer to use rechargeable cells where possible.

There's a larger drain that would be great for bigger effects but it's too far away from our front yard unfortunately.


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## fogkeebler (Oct 2, 2015)

I wish we had some of these around our house. this is a really cool idea


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