Solar Bunny

thingiverse

A friend of mine is utterly obsessed with bunnies - so I obtained one of these affordable solar garden lights and hacked it into a garden bunny, complete with a carrot, which serves as the mount for the solar panel. Instructions Everything is printed in PLA with 0.8mm wall thickness for the bunnie and 1.2mm wall thickness for the carrot and connecting parts, with zero infill and support as needed - this depends on what your Printer can handle. I generally print PLA at 210°C and 40mm/s. The LED holder must be mounted to the bunny. To do this, it's necessary to drill an additional 10mm hole into the bottom of the bunny and a suitable hole for the wiring into the LED holder. The LED holder then needs to be glued to the bottom of the bunny. The peg that came with the solar light fits into the bottom or the other part of the LED holder, and that's it - the bunny is done. Drill some holes in the carrot for the wiring - an 8mm hole in the top and whatever suits your needs for the side hole. I used a 6mm grommet to seal the wiring from the carrot to the LED inside the rabbit. The solar mount can be screwed into the existing part of the solar garden light that contains the solar cell, the "electronics", and the rechargeable AAA battery. I sprayed that solar mount and the original part green and glued it into the carrot using hot glue. To glue PLA parts together, I generally use Pattex Plastix, which is a special adhesive consisting of an activator and the glue itself: http://www.pattex.de/do-it-yourself-mit-pattex-klebstoffe-produkte-new/pattex-klebstoffe/sekundenkleber/sekundenkleber-plastik.html - I couldn't find anything better to use on PLA. As for the minimalistic electronics inside the solar light, you might want to replace some of the very poor-quality cables and soldering with better alternatives and add some heat shrink to it as well. You may also need to charge the AAA NiMH battery that comes with the solar light using a regular charger - it's usually quite low on charge. In general, it all depends on what model of solar light you are using - in the end, they're all pretty similar. I used this one because it already has a separated LED: http://tnm.scene7.com/is/image/TNM/1426972000_prod_001