DIY Smart Studio LED Panel With ESP32 and Home Assistant Control (PWM Dimming + Warm/Cool White Color Mixing)

I built this DIY smart studio LED panel to create an affordable, customizable lighting solution for my workspace. By hacking a budget LED panel from AliExpress and integrating my own Sprig ESP32-C3 devkit with the Thorn dual MOSFET controller, I gained full PWM control over brightness and warm/cool white mixing. Everything is controllable via Home Assistant, making it perfect for smart home and maker environments.

Hardware

1. Led Panel studio light x1
2. 3D Printed adapter x1
3. Male spade connector 6.3mm x2
4. 22 - 28 AWG wire

Electronics

1. Sprig ESP32-C3 development board
2. Thorn dual mosfet controller expansion PCB
3. DC-DC Step Down converter
4. Parkside 20V battery

Tools

1. Soldering iron
2. Hot glue gun
3. A pair of pliers
4. A pair of side cutters
5. Wire crimping tool (Optional)

First I 3D Printed the battery adapter that attaches to the back of the LED panel, and the lid of the microcontroller enclosure. You can download all the printable files here.

In this step I crimped the 6.3mm spade connectors to 22 AWG wires, and pushed them into the corresponding holes on the battery mount. Always check the polarity of the battery you're using. In this case, the mount is for a Parkside battery where the positive is on the left side when looking at the 3D printed mount.

Next, I screwed the DC-DC converter on the corresponding holes of the 3D printed mount and I soldered the battery terminals to the INPUT of the DC-DC converter. If you use another type of DC-DC converter, feel free to experiment on mounting options. At this step you also need to adjust the OUTPUT voltage of the converter and set it at 5-7V, as that's near the operating voltage of the LED panel.

Next, I soldered the output wires of the converter, and I moved on to the wiring of the LED panel.

Most of these studio LED panels, have 2 rows of LEDs inside, consisting of warm-white and cold-white. The anodes of both rows are connected together into a single positive (red) wire, and their cathodes go to separate wires (white and black).

The electronics that will control the LED panel are consiting of a microcontroller (which is a custom ESP32-C3 board I made) and an expansion PCB with 2 mosfet transistors. The microcontroller, controls the 2 mosfets of the expansion PCB independently via 2 GPIO pins (8, and 9 specifically).

So, the connections that must be made in this step are the following:

1. Connect the anodes (red wire of the panel) to the DC-DC converter's positive output AND to the Thorn's power supply terminal.
2. Connect each cathode (white and black wire of the panel) to the negative input of each mosfet through its corresponding screw terminal.
3. Connect the negative output of the DC-DC converter to the Thorn's power supply terminal.

Next I secured the whole assembly to the back of the LED panel using wood screws in the places of the panel's original plastic screws. Also, I filled the battery's spade connectors with hotglue to prevent them from getting loose over time, and I did some cable management using zip ties.

Finally, I connected the ESP32 to my computer with a USB-C cable, and programmed it using the Home Assistant platform and the ESPHome plugin. This way, the LED panel behaves like 2 separate dimmable lights. From the Home Assistant platform, you can independantly control the brightness of each color, resulting in the color warmth and brightness you want. You can find the YAML configuration file for Home Assistant on my GitHub repo.