The Shire

I’m speechless!

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Fantastic

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That is cool. Nice technique and great results!

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I love these! Definitely need The Green Dragon. And ultimately Rivendell… dare we hope?

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Outstanding job.

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Such a creative and cool project! Thanks for sharing your build process and all the nifty details.

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What can I say that hasn’t already been said? :+1::clap:t3:

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Thanks for sharing. Incredible!!

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UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
“THE GREEN DRAGON INN”
Formerly known as the Golden Dragon Pub

As you can see I didn’t get the new dragon perfectly centered over the original gold one. Actually, I preferred the gold dragon as it stood out better, especially from a distance and when the morning’s rising sun reflected of it.

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That looks so good! I hadn’t noticed all the Celtic knot details around the windows, door, and above before. That really makes it impressive! And I love the little light above the door!

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All of these are wonderful. I’ll have to think about making something for out near the mailbox to amuse the neighborhood kids.

I ilke it in both colors.

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Wonderful! I love it so much! I have a question about your lighting. I’m guessing it’s battery powered? It seems as though you sealed everything to protect it. How do you change the batteries or are they on the outside?

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Chris and Rob,
The two original Hobbit Hole houses made for test purposes are powered with cheap garden path lights. Those units have solar panels and rechargeable batteries. I think I got those lights at Walmart for under $2 apiece. I have one garden light per window, so that’s four garden lights off to the side with wires from 4’ to 10’ in length. At first I was removing the LEDs from the garden lights and installing them in the window housings but I found the LEDs went dim over time even with fully charged batteries. I replaced those with 5mm super bright white LEDs. All the lanterns; the two test units and the three final units have a flickering yellow LED cast in clear resin. The two ’test unit’ lanterns are run on two AA alkaline batteries which I have to replace about every two months. Those batteries are inside the garden light housings. The garden path lights have light sensors, so they run from dust to dawn (actually they run until the rechargeable batteries are exhausted). Even thought each of those garden lights runs on a single AA rechargeable battery, they are decently bright and run most of the night.
Now, the three Hobbit Holes in the front yard are powered quite differently. Those are running on a 12 volt transformer that is plugged into 120 volt house power. Prior to this project my knowledge of electricity was pretty much limited to; don’t stick bobby pins in wall sockets and don’t stick a butter knife in a toaster. This has been quite the learning experience for me. Since I am running 4.5 volt LEDs on 12 volts, I had to reduce that voltage by soldering a 560 ohm resister to the positive lead on each LED, window lights and lanterns. There is a formula to figure out the proper resister to use based on power voltage and LED voltage but I didn’t like the value that offered and with some experimentation I settled on the 580 ohm resisters… plenty bright and not so much voltage as to risking the LEDs burning out too quickly. Once installed, replacing LEDs and resisters is a major pain, and I’ve had to do that several times. A couple things I’ve learned are, one, resisters get hot and need air around them to disperse that heat. Burying them in the ground only works just so long and it’s time to dig them out and replace them. I finally ended up mounting them in childproof pill bottles that are buried right inside the concrete block along with the window light housing and the plants. Second, make sure the back end of the LED, sticking out of the PVC end cap, is thoroughly encased in something like hot glue. I accidentally forget to do this on the Golden Dragon/Green Dragon unit and both of the LEDs failed when the wires corroded and broke. I had to remove the plants, the soil, the failed LEDs and replace it all. Now, it’s all properly sealed an everything is working fine. The art nouveau Hobbit Hole still has resisters in dirt, so I know I’ll be repairing that with pill bottle housed resisters some time in the future.
BTW, the Hobbit Holes running on 12 volt power do not have any kind of light sensing on/off feature, so the are lit 24/7. You just can’t see the windows light up until ambient light drops far enough. However, with a closer look, you can make out the flicker of the lanterns.
TMI? I’m often told, “25 words or less, Stephen!”
Best regards,
Stephen (OldFrog)


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I have enjoyed reading and seeing the journey. Outstanding in every way. :heart_eyes:

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This is amazing. You inspire me.

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Well done! Nerdgasm acheived. :ok_hand:t3:

Perhaps it’s the ~10 days just spent in wandering around all the Orlando theme parks, but the tourist in me wants to add:

  • 3D printed hobbits sprawled out drunk in front of the tavern
  • Infrequent random fluttering shadows behind the windows
  • Sit very quietly in the Shire and the faint sound of dining cutlery, fireplace crackle, or quarreling hobbits can be heard via well-placed playback devices .
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Nice… ain’t gonna blow away is it…?

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I like the four solar lights to the right of it. This hobbit has his own little solar farm, just like you can see at schools and stuff driving around! Love it all, including the description of your trials and errors with hooking up all the lights.

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Stephen, your work is so amazing! What a joy to see your photos and read your write-up. Stunning!!

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@chrisandrobwatson took me a second to parse out the 2 names. I wondered “ what background is Chrisandro?” ( then slaps forehead)

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