Simple Candle To LED Adaptor (customizable)

thingiverse

This is a very simple adapter to mount an LED candle clip into an ordinary candle holder. If you want to recycle or upcycle your old decoration, or simply switch to LED for safety reasons, this adapter may come in handy. In home improvement stores and other DIY or decoration retailers, you can find these affordable LED lights that contain an AA battery and a switch, or more elaborate versions that feature an IR receiver and a remote control. Usually they have a clip on the bottom to attach them to a tree or ornament without any hassle. This clip, however, can be removed from the light's stem by applying a bit of force. That is when this adapter comes in. I designed it to fit a 7.3 mm ball connector on the light's stem. However, since this thing is customizable, you can adapt it to any size you need. Customization is especially required for the outer dimensions so that it fits into your decoration and not mine. This isn't very hard. All you need is the tool FreeCAD. It's "free" as in freedom. On Linux, there's no installation required. On Windows, just follow the instructions on the FreeCAD website. Open the FreeCAD source file with the ending FCStd. Now the adapter should appear in the combo view. On the left side, you see a little tree containing the different model steps I used to create it. Single-click on the entry "BaseSketch." If it's not visible, open the triangles to unfold the project until you can see it. Below the tree you just opened is another section with a list. At the bottom, you can switch between "view" and "data." Select "data" here. Now you're nearly done. The last step is to make another page visible containing another triangle named "Constraints" above the view/data selection. Click on the triangle to open its contents, and there are the secrets of the model. You cannot change the first entry as it's calculated from the values below, but there you can change the dimensions of the object. When pressing Enter or leaving the dimension input field, the model on the right side should change its appearance. Congratulations! You just edited a CAD file with a CAD application. Once you're done, select the object in the list above and use the menu item to export your new model. As format, you can choose anything. The most common are STL or AMF.