LED Strip Repair PCB

LED strips are a great way to spice up any project and add some colour to your life.
Especially the addressable LED strips, like Neopixels, are awesome to play with!

However, on multiple occasions the joy has been ruined by a pad ripping off!
To solve this, I'll show you a simple solution with a small PCB!

The PCB that we will make is very easy: it has space to glue the LED strip, which is soldered to one side, and wires can be soldered to the other side.

We will use Eagle, good tutorials are available if you have no experience with it.

1. Measure your LED strip

To make a PCB for your particular LED strip, you need to have the right dimensions.
Measure the width of the strip, the width of the pads and their spacing.

2. Open the example file

The PCB is made in Autodesk Eagle, and consists of only the board (.brd file) itself, no schematic needed.
Open this file and you will see the board for my LED strip, with the 4 most important layers:

• Top: on this layer we can draw the top copper tracks
• tStop: this layer defines the places where the soldermask (the green coating on the PCB) is removed.
• Dimension: this layer defines the outline of the PCB
• Via: these are used to prevent the tracks from being peeled off when there is stress on the wires

To make the PCB suit your LED strip, adjust these layers as with any PCB.
Copy paste the necessary features, or move them according to your measurements.
To accurately position features (like a track), right click them and select properties.

3. Export your board

Once you are pleased with the PCB, we can export the GERBER files (used by the manufacturer).
Go to File>Generate CAM data and click OK. This will generate a zip file with all the files.

4. Order your board

Your PCB can now be ordered from your favorite supplier by providing them the GERBER files we made. I made 2 different versions, for which the board files are shared:

• 3 wire LED strip: for addressable LEDs like the neopixels

• 4 wire LED strip: for addressable LEDs like the APA102c

Many Asian PCB manufacturers can make 25 of these for only a few dollars!

Once your PCB has arrived, you can fix (or prevent damage) to your LED strip!

1. Cut off the damaged part

LED strips can usually be cut every few cm/inches, indicated by a cutline.
For some waterproof strips, you might have to remove the protective coating. This is easily done with a sharp knife.

2. Glue the LED strip to the PCB

While most LED strips come with adhesive, adding some extra might be a good idea!

3. Solder the LED strip to the PCB

For me it works best to start by tinning the pads on the LED strip.

4. Solder the wires to the PCB

That's it, your LED strip is now repaired and much sturdier!

If you have gotten inspiration to make your own, please vote for me in the PCB contest!

I hope you liked the project! Feel free to check out my other Instructables: https://www.instructables.com/member/ThomasVDD/