Don’t you get bored seeing your steady single-color LED strip light decorate your space? Want to liven up the atmosphere without complicated hardware? See below for how to make led lights flash two colors.
Introduction
LED strip lights come in different types and packages. There are single-color and RGB types. They also come with a ready-made driver along with a remote control unit. Usually, these packages come from China and are very cheap.
All is well in using these drivers inside a cheap plastic enclosure. However, you’ll be missing out on what creative customization can do. Why not make your custom LED driver and ditch away that bland-looking driver and remote that came with it?
Overview
You’ll be creating a flashing two-color led strip light driver circuit. This will be made of cheap off-the-shelf components. You don’t even need a microcontroller or do Arduino-style coding for this. All you need are transistors, capacitors, and resistors. You may even use this setup along with E-textile electronics for your handicrafts.
The circuit is based on an astable multivibrator circuit discussed in a previous blog. However, this time around, instead of using a 555-timer IC, a few passive components will be used. This keeps the BOM simple and allows you to create a tiny circuit that you can conceal through aesthetics.
Materials
Here are the things to prepare:
- 2 pcs. 2N2222 transistor
- 2 pcs. 100uF/16V Electrolytic Capacitor
- 2 pcs. 4.7k ohms 1/4 W resistors
- 4-pin connector (for RGB LED strip)
- 2-pin connector (for power)
- Prototyping PCB
The Circuit
The component values are derived from the timing formulas below:
Length of time of flash of time1 and time 2:
time1 = 0.69 * C1 * R2
time2 = 0.69 * C2 * R1
For this, we get:
time1 = 0.69 * 100uF * 4.7k
time1 = 324 ms
time2 = time1 = 324 ms
Note that you can lengthen or shorten the time interval of each period according to what you want.
Demo
Here is a snapshot of what the circuit looks like assembled on a prototyping board:
And here is a video of it in action:
Hope you’ve enjoyed this simple how-to make LED lights flash two colours tutorial 🙂
