Adventures in sourcing

Yesterday morning I was looking at a blue LED under the blue jewel dome for my Equilux build, to determine how big to make the drop down resistor (10K…) and realized I’d like a small reflector around the LED to even out the dome facets.

Found a few leftover Hanukkah Gelt (mediocre chocolate “coins” used in a traditional holiday game) after dinner last night, and looked at the empty, thick foil embossed wrappers on the table. I ate a few more, smoothed them out, and now have a good supply of reflector material.

I‘d think finding carbochons in different sizes and colors wouldn’t be too hard. The flat bottoms would be easier to work with also.
 
jhaneyzz said:
Imagine if I could sell pedals festooned with “hand milled semi-precious luminous spheres, unique to each pedal in an ancient and arcane device from an undisclosed artisanal workshop in the San Fernando valley” heads would explode…
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Well, in my own defense I didn't sleep well two nights in a row. My oldest cat, Izzy has taken to screaming bloody murder at 4 am so he can go outside, only to find out it's too cold and screaming bloody murder again at 4:20 to come back in. He's 133 in human years....

Yes, now I understand. 'Festooned with black rainbow Onyx from an ancient American Indian arrowhead source in Alturas California' would make a nice description too!
 
Alan W said:
Yesterday morning I was looking at a blue LED under the blue jewel dome for my Equilux build, to determine how big to make the drop down resistor (10K…) and realized I’d like a small reflector around the LED to even out the dome facets.

Found a few leftover Hanukkah Gelt (mediocre chocolate “coins” used in a traditional holiday game) after dinner last night, and looked at the empty, thick foil embossed wrappers on the table. I ate a few more, smoothed them out, and now have a good supply of reflector material.

I‘d think finding carbochons in different sizes and colors wouldn’t be too hard. The flat bottoms would be easier to work with also.
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I have looked at those but I’ve often found that cabochons aren’t circular, but oval.
 
jhaneyzz said:
I have looked at those but I’ve often found that cabochons aren’t circular, but oval.
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I've made hearts, crosses, ovals, and round, triangular and free form cabs (as we rockhounds refer to them) Started making wrought silver and cast gold jewelry when I was 11, the same year I started playing guitar. Square ones too. I never liked the square ones tho....
 
Well.... I finally did it.... Installed the Alibaba app.

500 suppliers of 12 mm orange glass marbles in the first search. (only kind of kidding.)

What new adventures in sourcing await us now???
 
vanwhy said:
@jhaneyzz I may have missed it, but how are you lighting the marble? Drilling then putting the LED in it? Looks bad ass.
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Thanks,

This shows it pretty well.

The marble is sitting in a hole just a tiny bit smaller than the diameter of the marble.

It's set in place with black hot glue. then a layer of translucent velum is layered in between the LED and the marble.

The distance and direction of the LED from the velum is super critical to getting just the right smoldering glow effect, Still photos don't really do it justice.

The real trick is finding a source of properly sized amber/orange marbles.. marbles just do not come in those colors...



img_7462-jpg.45822
 
jhaneyzz said:
Well.... I finally did it.... Installed the Alibaba app.

500 suppliers of 12 mm orange glass marbles in the first search. (only kind of kidding.)

What new adventures in sourcing await us now???
Click to expand...
interesting update... 499 of those suppliers ended up being the same company charging a buck a marble, minimum order of 100, with $#& shipping (and about a 2 month turnaround...

Orange marbles are just not a thing...
 
jhaneyzz said:
Thanks,

This shows it pretty well.

The marble is sitting in a hole just a tiny bit smaller than the diameter of the marble.

It's set in place with black hot glue. then a layer of translucent velum is layered in between the LED and the marble.

The distance and direction of the LED from the velum is super critical to getting just the right smoldering glow effect, Still photos don't really do it justice.

The real trick is finding a source of properly sized amber/orange marbles.. marbles just do not come in those colors...



img_7462-jpg.45822
Click to expand...
And I find that regular marbles are too big.

I use 11 or 12mm marbles. (not that you can actually get the diameter you order...)
 
jhaneyzz said:
interesting update... 499 of those suppliers ended up being the same company charging a buck a marble, minimum order of 100, with $#& shipping (and about a 2 month turnaround...

Orange marbles are just not a thing...
Click to expand...
Alibaba is the "wholesale" version of Aliexpress so yeah, that's about how it goes. You might have better luck with Aliexpress unless you've already checked, but even then whenever I order from there (not often, but the clear plastic spacers I've used for footswitches were decent, even if they were thin and bendy) I just approach it with the attitude that "yeah it's going to take two months to arrive". Usually it's faster than that, but it can really take a while with the cheapest shipping.

As for shopping from Aliexpress, I haven't really been burned there, ever. The key is to look at reviews and ratings, pick the options which people have bought the most if there are multiple, and read the descriptions carefully. Oh, and compare shipping + price for all of them, sometimes for some of them the price is lower but shipping is higher, so they "hide" the price in shipping (or maybe they subsidize the shipping in others, either way it comes out the same).
 
Are you talking Alibaba, or AliExpress? AliExpress is more like eBay and has buyer protection (although you still get that with any credit card) and feedback. I was dealing with a seller on AliX and said I was just going to file a dispute with my credit card and I got a refund in like 30 seconds. I was kinda stunned at how well that worked. Literally took a sip of coffee, grabbed my phone and got the refund before I could look the number up.

I was looking at cellphones and they had $1000 phones for $100. Looked at the feedback and buyer had received a P.O.S. flip phone instead of a 8" android. Caveat Emptor.....
 
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