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

20 Minutes

I'm no electronic engineer , 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

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• 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.

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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.

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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.

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