Cakie! - Topper Revisted

**Sak's been bugging me about posting his project for a while, and I being lazy, told him the only way it was going on the blog was if he wrote it. So here you go, folks, Sak's first (and probably last, judging by the amount of complaining I heard) post!**

Hello, this is Sak. Since the table numbers are making penga run about with out her head attached, I have decided to write about our cake topper.

As we have mentioned earlier, our cake will have power poles going up the side with a streetlamp lighting up the happy couple...And what could go better with the model train power poles, then some model train streetlights? all I need to do is switch out the wall plug with some batteries and we're good to go, right?

Easier said than done apparently. While they look nice, they were notoriously inefficient...and needed a whole 8-pack of AAs to light up which looked kind of silly. So I had to do a few things to salvage improve the design.

First I swapped out the old bulb with three LED bulbs which were brighter and took less power.

Everyone loves LEDs.

Unfortunately you normally cannot hook up LEDs directly to the batteries, since they need additional electronics (a constant current source for those of you who care) to function properly. Since I had to design the electronics myself (and because this was more fun than making escort cards), I decided to add a boost converter, so it only needs 2 batteries. (and made sure that the whole thing was 100% lead free)
The AA batteries are the biggest components of the project!
And then I fit the whole thing inside a mint tin.

Curiously shocking mints

Finally, I took the topper, poles, some thread and cardboard, and put together the mock up to show Penga.

Closeup of the poles.

All lit up!

Did you have a "personal touch" added to your cake?