A Pocket LED Badge With Custom Shapes and Design.

Hello everyone, I made a LED pocket badge. You can have custom shapes and designs. Maybe even some great drawings if you can do that.

It lights up in the dark and is even visible in the light as well.

It's a cute little project that you can make, or you can make it for your kids or help your kids in making it. It is very easy to make and the openness of this project, where you can make possibly any design or shape that you want, makes it much more fun and exciting to make.

Along with this project, I gave some tips on how to solder better and there's even a step-by-step video that you can watch in case you get confused or stuck on a step. But you most likely won't because this project is very simple to make.

To Make This Project, You Will Need:

PCB https://amzn.to/3ktEqV7

LEDs https://amzn.to/3lPgCdX

battery holder https://amzn.to/3kq1WSO

3v coin cell battery holder https://amzn.to/2XDir5D

soldering iron https://amzn.to/3kp3htc

cutter https://amzn.to/2XKA43m

FLUX, BUY FLUX. DON'T MISS OUT ON FLUX, FLUX IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN SOLDERING. APPLY A LOT OF FLUX https://amzn.to/3nRqfLJ

liquid flux (this one is even better) https://amzn.to/3zsALLE

You can use a glue gun as well, but it is not necessary normal glue would do just fine https://amzn.to/3hXc0Ba

Some cardboard and a piece of paper as well. https://amzn.to/2XX6FTz

Take the perfboard or PCB and flip it in a way so that the copper plating is on the opposite side.

Now take some LED's. I need five for the design I am going for. But take as many as you will need for your design. And also make sure that all of your LEDs work before using them. This one little thing will save you so much time troubleshooting later.

Now push the LEDs into the PCB.

This task might seem simple, but this is one of the most important step in this project, and it needs to be done with care.

What you need to keep in mind is that all the positive leads of the LEDs stay on one side and all the other stay on the other side.

The longer leads are the positive ones and the smaller ones are the negative ones.

I am placing my positive leads on the upper side and all my negative leads on the lower side.

Also, after you're done. Mark which side is which with a marker. Don't worry about the ink ruining the soldering, as you can't solder on this side. Just mark the correct terminals. Positive for up and negative for down.

Instead of finalizing the first design you made, you should try out different designs and shapes and then decide which one looks the best. Nothing is permanent right now, so it would be way easier changing something right now than later.

Now flip the PCB and bend all the leads of the LEDs. You can bend them in any direction, but if you bend them away from each other, then they would hold the LEDs in place better.

Now begins the soldering part. Before you begin soldering anything, make sure that every single connection that is to be soldered, has enough flux on it.

If you apply too much flux, nothing bad will happen, but if you apply too little then that might ruin the soldering, and you might encounter many problems while soldering because the solder or other components wouldn't be heated enough.

So make sure you do that. Add a lot of flux. I would even say take a butter knife and apply it like the butter it feels like.

Once you've applied flux on everything. Take a soldering iron and a small piece of solder wire and solder all the joints.

If you are helping your kids in this project then you can do it for them as soldering iron can give you burns.

Don't worry about the connections right now, just solder all the leads on their respective pads.

One you're done soldering, cut all the leads.

Don't throw away the leads.

First, collect all the LED leads.

Second, make all the straight connections with the LED leads.

And Third, make all connections with curves with flexible wires.

And before you solder. Just know that you don't need to worry about making the right connections right now, either. For now, just solder all the positives and negatives together. Which shouldn't be a problem since you have marked them with a marker.

Instead of trying to solder everything together with one long wire. Solder everything in small parts. For me, the smile and eyes were two different parts. I soldered all the LEDs in the eyes together and all the LEDs in the smile together.

Don't worry about connecting everything together right now. Just connect what is easier. If two parts of your designs are away from each other or are interfering with each other in some way, then divide them into parts.

Now take a battery holder and solder wires to it.

To make sure the wires don't come off easily, stick them on the battery holder with tape or hot glue.

Now with the battery holder done. Check if all the different parts in your designs are lighting up perfectly or not.

It's a good thing to check all the individuals parts separately before soldering, as that can save a lot of troubleshooting time.

When you're sure all the separate parts work. Solder them together.

Either use normal wire with insulation or use tape on uninsulated wire to make all the connections and making sure that both terminals don't come in contact with each other.

That's why I asked you to do them in parts. Because now you have soldered all the LEDs that were closer to each other with uninsulated wires and didn't have to worry about both sides touching each other.

And now you can solder all parts together with wires that have insulation on them. You don't have to use complicated ways of soldering to keep both terminals away from each other.

This is really helpful in much more complicated designs.

One done soldering, check if all your LEDs work once again.

It's better if you check your LEDs in every stage, so that you can troubleshoot a problem as soon as it arrives, and you know exactly what the problem is, instead of trying to figure out what might have gone wrong and where, once you're done making everything.

Take a fine tip marker and mark the area you want.

The PCB is very big, you don't want a badge the size of the whole PCB. So mark out how big you want your badge to be.

Marking is way too important if you have a complicated shape of badge. Mine is just square, but yours can be a star or maybe with some curves.

Now take a paper cutter and make some marks along the lines of your marking and break it off with pliers.

This was the easiest and cheapest way of cutting the PCB I know of. But, if you have a metal cutter or something else like a saw that can cut the PCB better than a paper cutter, then feel free to use that.

Take a piece of cardboard. And on this cardboard mark the dimensions of the PCB that you just cut. Now cut the cardboard in such a way that you can make a box out of it in which your PCB can fit comfortably.

Make sure to measure everything instead of just eyeballing it.

Now take the front side of that box and cut a frame in it. Cut the middle part so your LEDs can shine through.

Then, paste a piece of paper on it so the LED's don't shine straight into the eye, but some light actually gets diffused through the paper.

Now glue everything together without the back panel.

Now solder the battery holder with the LEDs. Make sure to take the batteries out before soldering.

Now glue the PCB inside the box in such a way so that the LEDs are facing the paper.

You can use any glue, but hot glue makes everything sturdy.

Now colour the box. I used markers because they would be a lot faster, but you can use watercolours. In fact, you should use water colours. They look pretty.

Now make the clip that will hold this badge to your pocket.

I made it out of cardboard.

Now glue the clip inside the box, above the PCB.

Now glue the back panel. Make sure to make a hole for wires in it. And make the hole on the upper side.

Once you're done, glue the top part of the clip to the back panel to give it some grip to hold the badge in the pocket. Maybe glue about 20% of the top part of the clip to the back panel and leave the rest unglued.

Now you can colour the back panel as well.

Congratulations, you have reached the end of the tutorial. And now you have a wonderful looking LED badge that you can wear.

My camera couldn't see the design in normal light, but it is very visible to the normal eye.

You can look at these other photos where I tried to get the design, to see how the LED design actually looks like.

I wore it, and it looks so cool in the dark. It's also visible from a fairly long distance, which was also amazing.