Electronically Breathing Christmas Tree

Covered in lights, this smart electronic tree breathes like you do and makes your Christmas look awesome.

We are now in Christmas week and many of you would have started planning for Christmas. To make this season full of joyful surprises, EFY brings you an exciting project series that will add more fun to your Christmas and New Year celebrations. Be it friends or family, colleagues or acquaintances, everyone can join in this season of giving.

Combining artistic design and electronics science, the smart electronic tree that you will learn to create today features several LED lights in the branches that are powered by a power source present in the roots. What’s interesting is that the LED lights operate similar to a human’s breathing pattern.

So let’s begin our beautiful journey by shopping for the following components.

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Bill Of Materials

Construction

First, design the tree’s basic look and create its branches as shown in the below figure. Then, 3D print a small pot or buy a small readymade one for the tree.

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After designing the structure, cut the laminated copper wire into several pieces and wrap them together as shown below.

Next, solder one end of the wire with an SMD LED. While doing so, make the positive terminal reach the other end of the wire, that is, the bottom of the tree so that all LEDs connect to the power source.

Now, solder the positive wires of the tree’s roots, that is, ends of the LED wires to the Arduino board pins 9 and 11. Connect GND of LEDs to the GND pin of the Arduino board. But before that, place a circular cardboard piece near the roots to cover them. You can also 3D print the cover.

Write the LED breathing code and upload it to Arduino. You can also write a custom code for including various lighting effects such as blinking, fading, interactive with music etc.

Download Source Code

Finally, make a small hole in the pot for bringing out the 5V power wire of the Arduino and cover the cardboard piece with soil (see pic).

Congrats!! Your Electronically Breathing Christmas Tree is now ready. It will look amazing with your home decorations. Enjoy and have fun with your Christmas and New Year celebrations.