Make Your Own Smart Light Strip

Details

In this guide, I shall outline the steps to be followed to get yourselves a smart LED strip on a budget. This strip can be controlled using both the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa either by voice via the respective party's smart speakers or from the respective party's apps.

Files

flash_download_tool_v3.8.5.zip

Tool to flash the NodeMCU

x-zip-compressed - 19.08 MB - 02/01/2021 at 04:24

Download

SMD 5050 LED STRIP CONTROLLER.fzz

Fritzing project file

fzz - 44.52 kB - 02/01/2021 at 04:24

Download

H801.zip

Firmware binaries that needs to be flashed.

x-zip-compressed - 237.12 kB - 02/01/2021 at 04:24

Download

SMD 5050 LED STRIP CONTROLLER.rar

Gerber files for the PCB designed.

RAR Archive - 56.12 kB - 02/01/2021 at 04:24

Download

Components

6 × Terminal Blocks

1 × Wemos D1 Mini

1 × SMD 5050 RGBWW LED Strip

1 × PCB Electronic Components / Misc. Electronic Components

1 × LM2596 DC-DC Step Down Converter

Build Instructions

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1

Strip Controller Wiring

The smartness to the SMD 5050 strip is added using a NodeMCU/ESP8266 based controller. The strip controller board comprises of:

1. Wemos D1 Mini/NodeMCU that connects to the internet.

2. DC-DC converter that steps down the 12V supply to the microcontroller tolerable 5V.

3. 3 MOSFETS for the Red(R), Green(G) and Blue(B) channels.

The wiring diagram shows the connection between the different parts.

A word of caution though. The pins cannot be interchanged and has to be used as it is. The Pins used with Wemos are D6, D7 and D8. They translate to GPIO numbers 12, 13 and 15. Please refer to the pin map attached.
2

Preparing a PCB for the Controller

Populating the components on a PCB makes it more compact and easy on the eyes than having wires dangling between the parts. In the previous step, I had shown the wiring diagram. As the wiring diagram was made in Fritzing, it was easy to design the PCB directly from the wiring diagram.

As one can probably see, I have mad the supply tracks thick to stand the current draw from the LED Strip. Due to the shortage of time, I soldered the components on a general purpose PCB.

Those who wish may fabricate the PCB using the Fritzing or the Gerber files attached. There are a number of different PCB fabrication providers, but I recommend JLCPCB (https://jlcpcb.com) for fabricating the PCB purely based on my experience.

Link to the Fritzing file: https://mega.nz/file/a0xGFJjT#1llAj0IeAiGFmeHzPdaW...

Link to the Gerber file: https://mega.nz/file/m4gAUDCa#UPfquIzSdDWayZLJ8wdg...
3

Prerequisites for the Controller Software/firmware

The Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa integration is quite complex for DIY projects. In this instructable, we will be making use of SUPLA (a free home automation service provider) for their built-in Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa integration.

1. First head over to https://cloud.supla.org/login and login or create an account if you already dont have one. immediately after logging in you will be presented with a screen that looks like the following image.

The credentials under supla-dev will go into the NodeMCU/Wemos and the supla-client credentials will go into the SUPLA phone/tablet app. Leave it opened as we will comeback to it again (Do not share the credentials. I changed my credentials and no longer use the ones shown here).

2. Next, go to https://www.supla.org/en/download webpage and scroll down untill you get to the "H801 WIFI LED CONTROLLER" tab. Click on the download button to download the binaries that needs to be flashed onto the NodemCU/Wemos.

3. Download the FLASH DOWNLOAD TOOLS from the Espressif's downloads page https://www.espressif.com/en/support/download/othe... There seems to be only a Windows version, however you can refer this post for running the flash download tools on a macOS machine https://blog.squix.org/2015/05/esp8266-flashing-no...

4. Unzip both the H801 and Flash Download Tools zip files into separate folders.

Next, we will take a look into the firmware flashing process.