They work!  They're waterproof!  And they float!  And not in a Stephen King kinda way!

Tom, (aka Santa's Helper on PC), and I tested my Floating Water Globes at the April Mini in OKC, (thanks Tom for hosting yet another totally fun and informative Mini).  Although I had already tested them in a flower vase at the house, floating them in the Canal at Boomtown proved to be the ultimate test.  Not only did they keep working as the Party Barges went by, they had people stopping to ask what we were doing and what are those things.  Granted the water in the Canal isn't the clearest, (there's a very valid reason they color the river in SA green for St Patty's Day and of course Las Colinas was so murky a big ol' alligator took up residence, much to the dismay of the tri-athletes a few years ago), anyway, I'm sure the lights would have reflected much farther in clearer water.  I wish I could run test bouncing the light off a fountain, but we're two years into a very serious drought and all outside watering is verboten, except once a week on trash day.

Now on to the How-To

Steps are mostly the same as the Globes How-To with a few very important exceptions.

Hard wire the connections.  Once you seal the globes, they're in there to stay for their 100K hours or whatever they say LEDs are supposed to last for.  One of the red globes I used for a test was plugged into a socket I bought from BestHongKong, the socket connection was intermittent, but the globe sure was sealed tight.  We bounced the globe off the concrete ala Roger Daltry and couldn't get it open to fix the socket.  So step one...

Wrap the wire directly to the posts

Solder them, try to to a better job than I do.  Sometimes I'm in a hurry and my soldering is close to criminal.

Heat shrink the aforementioned suspect soldering.

Thread the wires through the holes in the globe.  You'll want to make sure you're running the wire holes into the globe half that has a receding lip.  It holds the glue much better than the other overlapping half.

Run a bead of glue around the edge of the globe.  I'm using hot-glue with this demo simply because it cures faster.

Snap the two halves together making sure you have the holder on the top aligned.  You'll need it aligned in the event you want to hang it or submerge it.

Once the lip is set, glue the base making sure you don't have air bubbling up around the wires.

If you're using a normal sealer like the above, make sure you follow the curing instructions.  Make it easy on yourself, if it says full strength in 24 hours, wait 28 until you try and test it underwater.

But, if you're like me, nothing ever gets done fast enough, so here's my trick to get hot glue to cool fast.

Turn the duster upside down and a couple quick bursts of duster cools it faster than Jack Frost.  Of course, there's probably something very unsafe about doing that, but it works for me and if you experience different results, well, like I'm constantly repeating, I'm an expert at nothing.

Once the globes have cured for however long the manufacturer recommends, wire them up to a D-Light DC-x16 board, hook up the computer and do a little QC just to make sure they're water-tight, (bubbles once they're under water is a real bad thing).

You don't necessarily have to run the D-Day QC Test, but I guess it can't hurt, and NO the lights weren't on while he was testing the water!  But, he did prove they're pretty bullet, (or I guess I should say, bite), proof.

I'll add night time pictures later, that is, unless it starts storming again.

Remember this is my site and my opinions, I'm not an expert at anything, if you have questions or constructive comments e-mail me, and finally, please don't post any of this information on the TCL site or boards.  Thanks