Strobe light

I'm trying to learn about electricity. The way I explained it to my brother-in-law, who is a chef, is that a programmer should know a little something about electricity for the same reason that a chef should grow his own herbs: it's good to have a connection to the lower levels of the stack you live on.

Disappointingly, I missed SparkFun's Free Day, but this afternoon my neighbor gave me a chance to redeem myself slightly. He plows as a side job, and we've been getting quite a bit of snow this winter. After being on for pretty much three days straight, the car adapter for his strobe light had melted. He came up with another one, and wanted it attached to the light. Easy enough, but he also wanted the pilot light from the old one installed in the new one.

After taking the plug apart, I had to check Wikipedia to make sure I wired it up again properly—the center post is positive. And I had to check the Arduino tutorial I went through a while back to make sure I put the resistor for the LED on the correct side—positive, as it turns out:

I managed to fit the pilot light into the new adapter, drilling a hole for it and soldering it onto the leads:

And it worked! (Mouse over for the full effect.)

A pretty basic repair, but satisfying nonetheless.