A Teeny Tiny Tea Light with a Neon Bulb
The DIY device runs for nearly a day on LiPo battery and charges wirelessly.
As Zycenios notes in their project writeup, neon lamps are now mostly obsolete. However they do have a great look, and “deserve better than to be consigned to the history books” in favor of LEDs.
To promote this idea, the hacker came up with a small, portable neon bulb tea light assembly, featuring wireless charging and a 3D-printed housing. The original goal was to make this as a necklace, but the size of the charge coil and the inductor height used made that impractical. Perfect, though, for a tea light setup.
The device is powered by a 250mAh LiPo battery, with circuitry implemented to produce the 77V needed to “strike” the light, and the 57V needed to maintain it. The voltage conversion design was found on this page, which contains a ton of info on neon lamps – a great resource for anyone wanting to create their own non-LED glowing light fixture.
LiPo charging is handled by an MCP7381 IC, with power supplied by a Qi-standard wireless charging pad used to allow it to charge on a number of wireless base units. Battery life is about 20 hours, or roughly a day.
The build could be a fun way to add a bit of neon mood lighting to your environment, and the circuit seems like a good place to start if you need wireless LiPo power for a project.