







The fine folks at Cradle of the Sun (if you live in the SF Bay Area, this could be your local glass shop! map link) have asked me to show them how I make my magic happen:

I’ll start by showing you two pictures of the head and tail of the cat with the copper foil attached, look very closely…





Do you see the gaps in the tape? on each piece, there’s a small isolated portion of copper. Keep this in mind as you read on.

The LEDs is a part of an electrical circuit. This is the most basic circuit, it involves a battery and LEDs in parallel. What’s important is that this circuit has a positive and negative side, electricity will flow from (don’t kill me for saying the next part) the positive side of the battery, through the LEDs, and into the negative side. The gaps in the copper tape is what divides the positive side from the negative side.

The picture above is showing how the LEDs are soldered onto the tail. The positive/cathode side of the LEDs are soldered to the isolated copper part of the tail, and the negative/anode side of the LED is connected to the outer side of the tail via 30 gauge wiring. The size of the LEDs are tiny, it’s a surface mounted 0603 size, this means no legs.

The isolated/positive part of the tail is connected to the isolated copper part of the head via those cat whiskers. Those whiskers serve as wires. They are also make sure the isolated sections of copper foil do not detach from the glass, the adhesive backing they have is actually fairly weak.

How are the whiskers connected to the battery’s positive terminal? Errr… so I used the thinnest enamel (meaning, insulated) coated copper wire I could buy… so I don’t blame you for not seeing it. It travels up the chain. The chain itself is the negative of the circuit, it links directly to the majority of the copper in the suncatcher.

Up above is a PCB (printed circuit board) I designed specifically for electronic suncatcher projects:





This is a simple small PCB that has only one coin-cell holder and one power switch. The hole is for the chain and is electrically negative. There’s a small hidden solder pad on the back for the positive terminal (sorry the pictures don’t show this). The copper flood is a hatch pattern to give it some interesting texture easily.

A lot of larger stained glass artwork are hung by two chains instead of just one, so one chain could be positive and another chain could be negative.

If anybody is wondering, everything is created through Adobe Illustrator first, then cut out onto waterproof vinly stickers sheets with a die cutter.

The rings are created with 18 AWG wiring, which is copper but tin plated.

Applying black patina for the first time in my life… I’ve learned a few things: