Building Your Own Remote Controlled LED On/Off Light Switch In Less Than 20 Minutes

I'm no electronic engineer or electronic expert, yet I came up with a simple way to build my own LED switch that can be controlled from my transmitter. Follow my easy seven steps, and you will have a complete working LED switch in twenty minutes time. Take note that this switch will only work with LED lamps. Before you start building, I would like to explain how this LED light switch work. A LED (Light Emitting Diode) lamp is a type of solid state lighting (SSL) that uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as the source of light. The LED bulb has a positive and negative leg. If the power input polarity is wrong, the LED will not work.

With this principle, I came up with the idea to use a standard micro servo for a LED switch that can be turned on/off from my transmitter. Almost all servos work on the same principle, so you can use any size servo. The LED switch need to be connected to an open channel (GEAR, AUX1 or AUX2) on the receiver, and will be activated with the relevant toggle switch on the transmitter. By toggling the toggle switch up and down, the polarity of the LED power lead will switch around. When the polarity is correct for the LED or LED's, they will light up. When the polarity is switched around, the incorrect polarity will turn the LED off.

Just keep in mind that the LED power lead will always have power, no matter the position of the toggle switch. Do not connect any LED light controller or any other electronic device to this switch. Components on the LED light controller or other electronic device might damage with polarity changes. Other than that, the LED switch works very well. The voltage output on the LED lead will be about 3.8vDC with a micro servo, and 4.8vDC with a standard servo. Most LED Lighting Systems operate with 4.8-8.0vDC. If you want to connect three or more LED's, I will recommend that you use a standard servo instead of a micro servo. Flashing LED's can also be connected to this switch.

What you need to build the LED switch

• One servo of your choice

• Soldering iron

• Heat shrink tubing

• Two way wire lead for the LED's

• Side Cutter

• Hot glue

Follow my instructions step by step, and you can't go wrong with building the switch

STEP 1: Make sure that the servo you want to use is in working order by connecting it to an open channel on the receiver (GEAR, AUX1 or AUX2)

STEP 2: Unscrew the four bottom servo screws, and take the servo apart so that the outer casing and gears can be removed.

Now that the outer casing is removed, it is clearly visible that the servo consist out of four main components: servo motor, circuit board, pod and servo lead.

Be careful when handling the circuit board so that you don't damage any components and detaching any wires.

The servo pod is very important when building the LED switch. All three wires on the pod and circuit board stay as is. If you want, you can shorten the pod wires to make the switch smaller.

Some servo motors have only two wires, but as from the photo above, a third black wire is soldered to the outer metal motor casing. The only two wires needed to build the switch, are the two wires that are connected directly to the motor. In this scenario, the red and blue wires.

STEP 3: The third black motor wire won't be use in building the switch. Use a soldering iron and remove the black wire from the circuit board. Be careful not to damage any components on the circuit board. Other servos might not have a third motor wire, then this step won't be necessary.

STEP 4: Use the soldering iron and remove the red and blue motor wires from circuit board. Now that the motor and all three wires are completely removed from the circuit board, you are ready to solder the wire lead for the LED's to the same position where the red and blue motor wires was removed from.

Now that the LED lead is soldered onto the circuit board, the most difficult part in building the switch is complete.

The length of the LED lead all depend on your needs. You can either solder LED lights directly onto this lead, or make use of a connector to connect a lighting system to the lead.

STEP 5: It is very important to adjust the servo pod to the correct position. On the photo above, the inner part of the pod is rotated fully counter clock-wise.

On the photo above, the inner part of the pod is rotated fully clock-wise. Now that you know the maximum travel counter and clock wise, the inner part of the pod must be situated halfway otherwise the switch won't work.

Now that the inner part of the pod is aligned correctly halfway, the next step can be followed.

STEP 6: You get different types of servo pods. This pod has a center pin that needs to be removed. Use a side cutter and cut the center pin off without damaging the inner part of the pod.

Now that the pin is removed, just double check that the inner part of the pod is still aligned halfway in position.

STEP 7: To prevent the inner part of to pod to move, I use hot glue to secure it in place.

STEP 7: The last step is to use heat shrink tubing to cover the LED switch. This will protect the switch and prevent any short on the circuit.

Congratulations... You have just build your own LED light switch.

The final product look like this. The size of the LED switch will depend on the type of servo used. I have build a couple of these switches, and found the micro servo to give a relative small end product. Connect the LED switch to an open channel port on your receiver. Flick the relevant toggle switch on the transmitter for testing the LED switch. On programmable transmitters, you need to assign the correct channel to the relevant toggle switch.

Now that you know how to build your own Remote Controlled LED On/Off Light Switch, you can ad lights to all your favorite models. Have fun........

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