Make Your Sweetheart a Solar LED Heart Ornament for Christmas!

While Christmas may be all about the presents for kids, for adults it’s about family, friends, and loved ones. Purchasing gifts is simply a way to show that we care and that we’re thinking about someone. But anyone can go buy jewelry or, if the commercials are to be believed, a brand new car with a giant ribbon on it. Actually making a gift takes a lot more thought and time, and is therefore more meaningful. That’s especially true for this Solar LED Heart Ornament that’s designed to last a lifetime.

ANTALIFE built this ornament for their wife, and designed it specifically to keep running for the rest of their lives. That’s thanks to a tiny solar cell and a supercapacitor that provides electricity to a low-power LED circuit. Whenever it gets dark, a phototransistor triggers a MOSFET to activate the LED circuit, which is driven by a ring oscillator in order to pulse. The LED is housed inside of a 3D-printed heart and diffuses nicely.

The solar cell ANTALIFE is using is an IXYS KXOB22–04X3F, though that has now been superseded by the newer KXOB25–04X3F. The operation should be the same, but the new model is more efficient. That charges an AVX SCMS22C255PRBA0 supercapacitor through an ST SPV1040 solar DCDC converter. The DCDC converter boosts the solar cell’s output voltage enough to charge the supercapacitor. That supercapacitor has a much longer lifespan than a traditional battery, and should be enough to keep the heart ornament pulsing for dozens of Christmases to come.