Reimagining MWM devices for Christmas, part 2: Paintbrush "Candle"

By khyizang, 30 December, 2015

Paintbrush 'Candle'PAINTBRUSH AS A CANDLE

Another simple holiday hack is to hide a paintbrush device in a candle-like housing. 

Here, 1.5" inner diameter ABS pipe was cut into 7.5" lengths and hot glue added to mimic wax drips.  That was then painted white and allowed to dry.   A pair of wires were fed up through the hole in the bottom of the pipe and out the top.  Those were connected to the battery terminals of the paintbrush and then the paintbrush/wires were lowered back into the outer 'candle'.   The assembly was stabilized in the candle holder using 3M mounting foam and the paintbrush shimmed with tissue paper to center the tip in the pipe's opening.  3.3V power was supplied by the same bench source used to power all the other MWM devices.  Again, the wire leads could just as easily be connected to an external battery holder to make replacing batteries simpler.

The proportions of 'flame' to candle don't match very well in this example.  I went with it simply because I didn't have candle holders with a larger base and 1.5" is the smallest diameter that allows the paintbrush to fit into.  Larger diameters of ABS pipe are readily available at Home Depot, etc.  So it's possible to adjust the proportions to your liking.

This hack is entirely reversible.  Pull out the paintbrush, unhook the wires, add back some batteries and you're good as new.