# LED Glowing Helium Balloons



## dynoflyer (Oct 8, 2006)

Here's a simple way to create one big or several small glowing orbs over your haunt. A Wal*Mart helium balloon kit is about $20, comes with enough helium to fill something like 25 medium balloons. You might also buy some extra white or clear balloons. Get one Duracell 2032 Medical battery for each balloon you want to illuminate while you're there. These are 3 Volt batteries. 

I used Xtra Bright Green and Blue LED's from Hong Kong but Radio Shack LED's should be fine, just a lot more expensive. 

Simply place the battery between the LED leads. The + lead from the LED goes over the "+" side of the battery. The LED should light as soon as it touches both sides of the battery. I didn't use a resistor, seems to work fine. 

Tape around the battery to hold the leads in place, making sure there's no exposed sharp edges to pop the balloon. Drop it inside a balloon, then fill it with helium. At the end of the night you can retrieve the LED's for future use. I'll use some dark green 50# test fishing line to fly the balloons over the graveyard about 50 feet up. The line should be invisible. 

You can use these LED lights for other applications because they're so small.


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## ScareySuzie (Oct 17, 2006)

that is such a cool idea. The LEDs I got for my spiders eyes were $2 a piece from Radio Shak. Any stores sell them cheaper?


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## MansionHaunter (Sep 20, 2006)

Just as a warning, don't expect the LED or the battery to last without a resistor.

The fact is, a battery will try to put out as much current as it can, and an LED will try to pass as much current as is given to it. The resistor keeps this from going out of control and damaging the LED from over current.


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## dynoflyer (Oct 8, 2006)

SS - I found the link on this forum and bought LED's on eBay. Search besthongkong on eBay. 50 LEDs go for $4.95 plus $9 postage. Ships from Singapore via airmail, but I doubt you'll see them before Halloween, now. Mine took about nine days to arrive. Red, Green, Blue and UV.

MH, I've got one going now to see how long it'll stay lit. So far, so good, been about 2 hours. Still going and going [wait, that's energizer's commercial, oops! These are Trusted Everywhere!] I'd be happy with 3 - 5 hours battery life. At .10 each, the LED's are expendable. Good advice though, thanks.

I've also built 5 LED spotlights running 9V batteries (w/resistors) hot melt glued into a 35mm film can with 4 LED's each. I put them into a section of PVC pipe mounted to a 1x4 sprayed flat black. They work great! So far they've been out for three nights from dark to 11 pm and still are pretty bright. I'll need new batteries after tonight, though. When I build another one tonight I'll take pics and post them under a new thread. The next one will run off an old 4.5V wall wart from a dead mp3 player.

I love the LED's. The ghouls, skulls and witches in the yard all have glowing, flashing LED eyes. Thanks to the info I've gleaned from this website and the Monster List, too.

I'm having more fun than my kids, this year!! Since Halloween is on Tuesday can't we extend it through the next weekend? I'm not done yet.


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## skullboy (Sep 21, 2006)

I tried a similar set up last year with glo-stik type lights.Worked ok until a lil wind came and the balloons started to lose altitude.Lets just say people around me were pulling fishing line off of thier lights and gutters.They all had confused looks on thier faces,like"where the hell did this come from?"


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## dynoflyer (Oct 8, 2006)

This picture was taken at 7:45 pm, almost eight hours. The LED is still strong. Less bright than when first lit but plenty bright enough to light up a white balloon at night. Trusted Everywhere. 
Wonder how many balloons it'd take to lift the Beagle?

The damn thing lasted almost a month!


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