Making a Homemade Flying Saucer

The project uses a pair of plastic party trays in order to create a resemblance of a small flying saucer.

The entire assembly of the saucer is hung from a tree branch using 50lb mono filament fish line which cannot be seen at night. Using a long 1/4inch bolt with 4 nuts each, metal washers and rubber washers, the two halves are bolted together. Along the outside edges, weather stripping was used. To produce 4V at 70mA, two of the solar cell units were stripped from the existing lawn lights and put in series. To charge the lithium-ion cell, a TIP42 transistor is switched ON when the light levels are sufficient since it drops less than 1/10V compared to Schottky diode which has about 1/4V drop.

The unit will begin to operate by running a number of different sequences when light levels drop near zero. The unit will go into dormant mode and will wait for more light when it senses that the cell voltage has dropped to about 3V. Around the edge of the bottom platter the hot-glued red, green, and blue LEDs with white LED near the center facing straight down.

Click here to see the rest of the project.