Another silicone sealing test.

Dipping with the acetone? Hard to say, there may be enough solvent in it to damage some components on the PCB. It MIGHT be ok for the solar cell, but it still depends on how the insulating masks are applied to the panel. Conformal coating spray is better for PCB's as it has a gentler solvent in it, and the spray generally gets everywhere it needs to for protecting the board.

Dustin

Hi Christopher, the bottle was actually part of an existing glitter lamp that I repurposed. And good clear bottle should work.

Big Clive

Hi Clive, Love this recent neutrally boyant diamond filled lamp project and i think I'm going to give the USB powered version a go. Can you please share a link for the bottle, I can't find that nice cylindrical 50mm bottle anywhere. Thanks, been a Patreon sponsor for a quite a while (I guess 22 Mo. by Patreon's tally) but this is my 1st post question. Totally love what you do...

On a more serious note, I saw a recipe for diy waterproofing. 1 caulk tube of silicone mixed with 500 ml of acetone. People paint it on fabrics. I wonder if you could dip a pcb or solar cell.

Jim

Have you seen Polythene Pam?

Jim

I noticed that the LED solar light strings that I ordered this year have a solar cell that is encapsulated under a layer of clear resin that appears to have been poured into the plastic frame. Ironically, this is also the year that I ordered the "good" UV stabilized greenhouse tape to place over them! The problem I'm seeing is that there isn't enough plastic around the frame for the tape to want to strongly adhere to and seal, so the resin/frame interface doesn't get the benefit of the sealing layer of tape. (I'm not certain is additional protection is warranted at all) I'm not certain that a layer of that tape over the resin is going to do a whole lot, so I split the difference and covered a few of my solar cells with tape and left the others uncovered to see how they fare at the end of the season. I've also noticed that the ones I picked up are using what feels like a higher quality push button switch, though I imagine that would also corrode internally over time.

Michael Thompson

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene</a>

Big Clive

I am not trying to be funny or anything, I'm genuinely interested: What do you mean by 'polythene' or 'polyfeen'? Polymerised terpenes perhaps? Or is it simply shorthand for poly-ethylene (which I know wouldn't really make sense, but I really don't know what else)?

You could also use a small piece of glass on top (over the plastic) to smooth it out perfectly. Something like the glass from a small picture frame perhaps. Maybe even Loca phone screen glue that cures with UV light, for instant results.

I have started treating solar lights with your silicon idea and so far so good! Thanks for the inspiration Clive.

This method looks very neat! Impressive tiny solar panel as well: I bet it could easily be repurposed for driving other kinds of small circuits. 25ma is enough for a lot of low power microcontrollers.

Axel DominatoR