RGB Pocket-Light

Gaming is fun. But RGB-Lighting is definitely essential for that. Since I wanted to make a small, portable light that can be controlled with a Smartphone I made my own one. I called it RGB Pocket-Light. It is lightweight, portable, bright and has definitely a lot of functions. It can be used as a decorative mini-light that can be carried around and charged up over it's USB-C-Port.

Here are the things needed for this project:

• PCB
• optional 3D-printed Case
• 10 WS2812B LED's (5050)
• 11 100nF-Capacitors (0603)
• 1 HT7333 LDO
• 2 5.1K-Resistors
• 1 1K-Resistor
• 1 10K-Resistor
• 1 USB-C-Port
• 1 Toggle-Switch
• 1 ESP12-module (I used the ESP12F but other ESP12-modules should work aswell)
• 1 of my TP4056-boards with custom footprint (I recommend to adapt the footprint in EasyEDA to use it with a common TP4056-board)
• 1 LiPo-Battery (I used a 700mAh-LiPo from AliExpress which lasts about 2hours with RGB-mode and half brightness)

All files needed for this project can be found here.

Since I'm not a professional PCB-Designer and also not very familiar with KiCad I used the free Software EasyEDA. It's really easy to use for designing rather simple PCB's. For a dedicated Tutorial on the Usage of EasyEDA visit my other Instructable.

So first I dragged all the necessary components into the schematic.

Next up I connected one with another.

After days of designing and redesigning the schematic I crossed my finger that it was all wired up correctly and started, you guessed it, designing the PCB.

I ended up making the PCB-Outline with Autodesk Fusion 360 (in my opinion the best 3D-Modelling-Software) and importing it into EasyEDA.

Since I've made my own TP4056-module a while ago I imported the slightly smaller footprint into the PCB. So if you want to use a common TP4056-Board you have to adapt the footprint.

I've made a small rectangle-hole for the ESP12-module to improve the WiFi-Signal.

For this PCB-project I only used 0603-resistors and 0603-capacitors except the two 5.1K-resistors for the modern USB-C-Port which are actually 0402.

Be careful to select the right USB-C-Port with the correct footprint and correct number of pins, but I can say that this one from AliExpress works well.

The final step is to export the Gerber-File and send it to a PCB-Manufacturing-Service like PCBWay.

Of course the Gerber-Files and the EasyEDA-project is in the Google-Drive-Folder.

Since I just want to upload the program once to the ESP12 and don't want to change it I didn't add any programming-pins to the PCB. To make my life a bit easier I used this 7€-ESP-Programmer that I can definitely recommend when working often with ESP-modules. You can just put in the ESP-module, connect it to your PC and program it as any normal ESP-Board.

The software I used for this project is invented by Aircookie and called WLED (https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED). You can integrate it in any Smart-Home-Application and control it either in the Browser on your Smartphone or your PC, emulate an Alexa-Device, connect it to your MQTT-Server and much more! I really love this project since you can control any RGB-LED's with an ESP-Board very easily with hundreds of effects. It is really well documented and worth to check out. But of course you can also program your very own code for the ESP-module.

To solder everything together I recommend using a Hot Air Gun (mine costs only 30€) in addition to a normal Soldering Iron. Since the packages are not to small they can easily soldered by hand atleast if you have a calm hand like me 😁. I recommend you to buy the components from your favorite Electrical Component-Provider like LCSC and solder them to the board.

Please note: When soldering the USB-C-Port it's mandatory to solder it properly without bridging any pins, because that's what I did and why it didn't work first try😅. Don't worry about the resistor next to the ESP12-module which I soldered belatedly. This schematic-mistake is fixed in the current version.

Since this fragile piece of electronics needs a housing I can highly recommend using a 3D-Printer. Of course you could also lay it somewhere like that but a 3D-printed-case looks much more professional. My case consists of 2 pieces. The bottom-piece which I 3D-printed in black and the lid which also diffuses the light which was 3D-printed in white. The 2 pieces were designed in Autodesk Fusion 360 wherefore I added the f3d-files aswell as the stl-files to the Google-Drive-3D-Printing-folder. If you want to you could probaly glue a magnet inside the bottom-piece to stick the whole thing to a fridge or anything magnetic for example.

After completing all these steps the project is finally complete.

Of course you can build multiple devices and link them together. I personally recommend to either use them with the white diffuser when facing you or removing the diffuser when pointing it at the wall to reflect the colorsIf you have any suggestions or questions related to this project feel free to comment! I'd really love to hear some feedback from you.