DIY Automatic Motion Sensing Bed LED Night Light

Hi, Guys welcome to yet another instructable that will always help you in your day to day life and adding a convenience to make your life easy. This could be sometimes a life savior in case of old age people that have to struggle getting up the bed at night and finding a light switch which could result into an accident like falling or slipping down in the dark due to their weaker reflex actions and inability to find the light board in dark. So basically its a simple project but much useful and anyone with some limited skills can too make this project at home. I have used an LED light strip and few other components to make this much useful automatic motion-sensing bed led night light. I will list down the items that are used in this project in the supplies so that anyone of you just likes to make one can easily get the supplies.All the components that are used are pictured above.

So let's make this led night light step by step.

1) PIR wall motion switch link-> https://tinyurl.com/wmopr6m

2) 12 v LED strip driver link -> https://tinyurl.com/rlfocfc

3) Wall mount switch box link-> https://tinyurl.com/wrbhhe8

4) LED Strip Yellow Waterproof link -> https://tinyurl.com/rx6bvtm

5) 12 v barrel connector and pins link-> https://tinyurl.com/rtwd5z2 ( could get it from local electronics components shop)

6) Some miscellaneous two core wire (source locally)

7) Electric two Pin plug according to country's standard I have used EU plug. (source locally)

8) Double-sided tape to fix assembly on the wall (source locally)

9) Few household tools soldering ion, soldering core, scissors, wires, heat shrink tube(or insulation tape), wire stripper, etc.

I took a plastic wall mount box and drilled two holes one for the input 230v AC supply mains wire and another for the switched 12 v sensor output.

Then I secured the 12v LED driver in the plastic box with double-sided glue tape inside the wall mount box and took the wires out from the output side to the LED strip. Note that I have already passed wires through the securing nut of 12 v barrel socket. Then I soldered the 12 v output barrel socket to the output of the led driver and screwed it in place making sure the correct polarity.

In this step, I passed the supply mains wire as shown before in the introduction through the supply hole and wired one lead directly to the electronic LED driver unit and other through the PIR switch. As seen from the figures above I have given the input of line wire to line input of the sensor switch. The switch output is then connected to the other lead of LED driver on the 230v AC input side. Make sure that if the input and the output are interchanged by mistake then you will burn your LED driver unit immediately. As such we completed that step before this one so that the chances of error are very slim. After completing the wiring and making sure to seal the open contacts with the insulation tape or thermo shrink tube, screw the switch plate to the wall mount box and finally the cover plate is installed. Make sure that the polarity of the barrel jack corresponds to the correct polarity in the socket or else the LED strip will be biased with a reverse polarity that will not turn on the light strip.

As mentioned earlier the output barrel jack is wired with the LED strip with correct polarity and some thermo shrink tubing is used to cover the exposed contacts of the led strip solder joint. The sensor switch and the power unit wall assembly which we completed in the previous step is ready to be mounted on the wall. Now care may be taken that the mounting of the sensor unit is as such a place or area near the bed where you need that sensor switch to trigger when motion is sensed. I have used double-sided tape to secure that assembly at the sensing zone near the side of my bed where as soon as I put my feet down the motion is sensed and the LED light strip is activated to on.

Now I had an advantage that my bed has a kind of edge wherein it was super easy to just stick the LED strip with its self-sticking glue. I carefully pasted the LED strip below the edge of my bed and cut the excess at the end of the edge of my bed. Then I plugged the barrel jack into the sensor output the sensor and power wall unit that we had mounted near the bed and voila you are done making an automatic motion-sensing bed LED night light.

The result of this project is overwhelming and it gives me a gentle wash of indirect yellow light and is really helpful when I sometimes wake up at night and it's completely dark and I don't have to fiddle around for finding a light switch. Also, light being indirect does not pierce into your eyes while you are half asleep. There are some settings in the sensor switch for light sensitivity and delay time. I keep that plugged in all the time as the motion-sensing is not activated during the day time and when its completely dark the switch works like a magic. I have also posted a Youtube video wherein you can see the making of the entire project and also see the working of sensing LED night light. I hope that you guys have loved this instructable and I would be more than happy to know your comments about this. Thanks for reading it till the end.