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Make Your Own Chewing Gum Box LED Night Light - Part 1
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Oct 11, 2024
Get ready to build this electronics project! This is the first video in a two part series of videos that shows you how to build The Chewing Gum Box LED Night Light detailed on the Motbots website. In this video we'll go from the breadboard prototype detailed on the website (link below) to the PCB board, to make a permanent circuit for our LED night light. Get out your components (parts list on website and below) and your solder iron, because we're going to build us a neat project! Video for Blog Page: "Make Your Own Chewing Gum Box LED Night Light" Project Page and Schematics: https://motbots.com/make-a-chewing-gum-box-led-night-light/ Description: This is video 1 of 2 for The Chewing Gum Box LED Night Light project. Website: https://motbots.com PARTS LIST: Extra Refreshers® Chewing Gum Box: https://www.extragum.com/refreshers PCB Prototype Boards: https://amzn.to/4eetBAj LED Kit: https://amzn.to/4bElmv1 Resistor Kit: https://amzn.to/4amcwRt SPST Rocker-Switch: https://www.jameco.com/z/1901-1103-Cherry-SPST-Rocker-Switch-ON-OFF-2-Pin_2172738.html 9V Battery Snap Connector: https://amzn.to/4dARfXj 9V Battery: https://amzn.to/4dHiQG3 Breadboard: https://amzn.to/3QM1Fta Jumper Wire Kit: https://amzn.to/3QN5UVl Helping Hands: https://amzn.to/4bKxJpg
View Video Transcript
0:00
Okay, so here we have our red board with LEDs and resistors from when I did the
0:09
prototype testing, our PCB prototype board, our 9-volt battery, rocker switch, and
0:17
battery snap connector. Here's a closer look at our PCB prototype board
0:30
Okay, here I'm starting out with the red LED
0:43
I've taken out of the red board. This is a red LED, a 5 millimeter diffused red LED
0:59
a graphic of an LED and how to identify the leads of a typical LED. The larger lead in the
1:11
interior of an LED looks like a flag. At least it looks like a flag to me and that's the way
1:18
that I identify the negative lead of an LED and the longer lead of the LED helps to identify the
1:29
positive lead or leg of the LED. The best way to identify what which leads are which, which is the
1:40
positive and which is the negative, is to use the fat flag ogy or looking, if you can
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looking inside the LED, the dome casing. In this case, we're using a red LED here
1:59
And looking inside, we could see a larger lead that looks like a little flag in there
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and that tells you that that is the negative lead. So therefore, the other lead of the LAD would be the positive lead
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So I use sort of an ogy for the negative lead or cathode of an LED
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being the fat flag and fat flags are bad for flying or negative for flying
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And the other lead, the longer lead of an LED or the anode or positive lead of an LED
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is the long leg and long legs are good for running or positive for running
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So here I'm placing the LED in random holes
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You can place your LED anywhere you'd like
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to on your PCB prototype board. Just be mindful of the orientation of the LED and the way that
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you want to set up your own PCB prototype board. All you have to do is follow along with the schematic
3:49
that's provided in the description below and on the website. So I want to
3:59
to keep each LED even and separated evenly and kind of placed in the center of my PCB prototype
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board so I've just chosen the particular holes or pinholes of the PCB prototype board to
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insert my leads of the red LED and I know by counting the
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holes kind of where the center would be and then I go from there on this
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spacing to make the LEDs spaced evenly here I've marked and then with a
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permanent marker just a negative and a positive on these end terminals or
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pads on the PCB board and this just kind of helps me I
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keep things in order. So here's the white LED. This is another 5 millimeter
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diffused LED. In this case it's the white light LED. Again we can see the fat
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flag or cathode of the LED inside the dome of the LED
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Here I'm just counting holes again and determining holes again and determining how much spacing
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I need away from the red LED in order to center everything
5:52
Here is the blue LED
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Here is the blue LED. Again long leg is the anode and the fat flag is the cathode using the ogy that I use all the time in order to identify the positive and negative leads of the LED
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Again, keeping spacing and noting the LED orientation. We want to keep all of the anodes of each LED facing one direction
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towards the labeled plus sign I made on my board in this case and all of the cathodes
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facing the other direction or towards the labeled negative sign I placed on my PCB board
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again to keep everything organized and giving me reference to
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where I need the positive and negative leads to be pointing to. Now I'm going to
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take the resistors out of the redboard and get them prepared to insert into the
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PCB board. I mentioned on the blog article of this project that I chose the
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1.2K-oam or 1,200-oom resistors as my current limiting resistors to the LEDs
8:03
In order to identify the size of a resistor, we refer to the color code chart for resistors
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So for the 1200-oom resistor, the color coding is brown, red, red
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Remember, resistor orientation doesn't matter because resistors conduct current in either direction
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So you can orient your resistors any way you'd like. They'll work just fine either way
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but in order to try to keep things nice and neat, I like to try to keep the color bands
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facing all the same direction, although that doesn't always work out for me
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because a lot of times I'm not really paying attention of their orientation since it doesn't really matter
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Here I have one of the leads of the resistor lined up with the cathode of the blue LED
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Just as the schematic had shown for this project, the cathode of the LEDs are going to connect to a term
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terminal to the 1200-oom resistor and then the other terminal of the
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1200-oam resistor will be connected to ground or to the negative terminal
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So we can see here that each of the cathode leads of the LEDs are all connected to
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their series current limiting resistor to ground. Okay, since I've set up the LEDs and resistors and placed them onto the PCB board
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before I get to soldering here, I want to go ahead and take a look at the rocker switch here
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You can use a toggle switch or a slide switch if you'd like here
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I chose to use a rocker switch for this project. this particular rocker switch happened to be one that I had lying around
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Here's a closer look at the rocker switch I'm using. Again, you can use any type of single-pull, single-throw switch you'd like to
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Here I'm just using some wire I salvaged off of a different project of mine sometime long ago
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I keep a lot of wires handy for myself and we'll just use these wires here for this particular project
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I just need to snip these connectors off of here because I won't be using them
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And now I'm just going to kind of do a rough measurement of how long I think I might need these wires to be in order to be able to connect them to the switch and to the PCB prototype board and have plenty of room
12:11
to fit inside the project box that we'll be using later and extend to where I'm placing the rocker switch to the outside of the box in order to turn it on and off
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Now I need to strip the wires. You can use, and it's probably best to use, a pair of wire strip tools, a wire strip
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tool. When I first started off having to strip wires for projects of mine long ago
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I didn have a wire stripping tool but I did have a pocket knife So I spent many years stripping wire just with a pocket knife
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It took some practice, but over time I got pretty decent at it
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And here I'm just demonstrating how to use a pocket knife to strip wire if you need to
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in case you don't have a wire stripping tool and you have a pocket knife yourself or maybe even a
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sharp kitchen knife or whatever kind of blade you can find. I don't recommend it because knives or
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knives are sharp and if you're not careful you can cut yourself and you could possibly damage the
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wire but if you practice enough you could get pretty good at it using the same
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technique light pressure using my blade of my pocket knife I pressed down and I
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turn the wire a little bit I'll press down again and turn the wire a little bit more
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and just keep doing that over and over again until I can see I've sliced all the way
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around and then it should be enough to just pull it right off
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Now I'll use a wire stripper tool to show you how to use this method
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Instead of using a pocket knife, this method is much easier, much faster
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It's a really convenient tool to have with a wire stripper tool
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You just choose the size of hole that you're for the size of wire you're trying to strip and bite down on it with the teeth of the wire stripper and just strip the wire off
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It's quick and easy. For this particular wire, I was unsure of which hole to use
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I just kind of guess. And you can hear a crunching sound, which means that I've started cutting into the wiring
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beneath the sheathing. So that's not what I want to do. I don't want to damage the wire underneath
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So I'll have to readjust and use a slightly larger hole in order to strip the wire
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Okay, now we're looking at our board again. Now I want to prep the leads in the back of the PCB for soldering
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I'm going to connect all the LED cathode leads together. You can see that these all connect to each other, and I left the one lead sticking out towards the pads at the end, which is the middle LED cathode
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The LEDs run parallel with each other. They connect each and connect in series to their assigned resistors
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I'm going to connect the resistor leads to the positive supply together, just as I did with the LED cathodes
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I'm just bending those leads over, making sure that they're all going to connect with each other, and later I'll be soldering it all together
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These connections will complete our series parallel resistors and LEDs across our power supply
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referring back to the markings on the pads at the ends of the PCB board
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And if we look where I have marked for the positive pads or the positive side of the board
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You can see where I've marked positive supply side to B, and that's where I have the cathodes or excuse me the anodes of the LEDs pointing towards
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We can see where I'm marked for negative that all the resistor leads connect and go toward
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the where I've considered the negative side of the board. I'm sorting out soldering the leads to the LEDs together that go to ground
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I just chose to do this side first. It doesn't really matter where you begin on your PCB board
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And you can move stuff out of your way if that is necessary
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Just be sure to put things back later. Again, taking your time, try to do as good a job as you can
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This is just a simple project. There's no need to rush with it
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just have fun and again refer to the schematic if you need to and just keep
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looking over things as you're going along want to put the lead back because I
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moved it out of the LEDs together that all go to ground
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Now it's time to solder the series terminals of the LEDs and resistors together. together
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Again, take your time
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There's no rush. I'm going to bend this lead over and get ready for t
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Now I'm t the leftover lead from the center resistor. you're careful doing this because you can get some wire pieces flying after you
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snip the wire and you could have a piece fly in your eye or something so you want
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to be very careful doing this maybe even wear some eye protection if you feel
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that that's necessary now I need to tend the exposed wire for our switch and
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And tending is just putting some of the solder onto the exposed wire
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This will help in getting that wire to stick for us later
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I'm tending one pad where my positive wire will go. Now I'll tend the negative wire for the switch
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I'm attaching this black wire where the switch
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I'm attaching this black wire where all the anodes of the LEDs meet
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This will be the wire for the other end of the switch
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This will complete the circuit once I attach the switch to these two wires
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Then after that all I'll need to do is connect the power source
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Now it's time to tend the other ends of the exposed wire. Again, taking your time, make sure you're not leaving the
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solder iron tip too long next to the wire or on the wire because if you do, you'll end up
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melting the sheathing of the wire, which I've done many times before. Now I'll need to
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tend the terminals of the rocker switch to attach to the wires. Again, this tending process is to make the
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surfaces of the terminals, I like to stay more sticky to be able to put everything together
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Because if you don't do that, then you'll have a pretty tough time trying to solder the terminals to either the PCB board or to your wires or to other components
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Now it's time to solder the wires to the switch. And then our switch will be done
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Later I'm going to have to detach this switch from the circuit or desolder it from the circuit
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because I'll have to try to fit this switch from the outside of the project box and feed the
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box and feed the wires through a hole that I'll make in the project box later on
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And right now I'm just soldering the switch to the wires in order to be able to test the
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circuit later once the circuit is complete. Next I'll need to tend the terminals of the battery snap connector
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That way we can attach the battery to our circuit. and then turn our circuit on
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I'm soldering the positive terminal of the battery snap connector where I soldered the red wire of the switch
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I'm soldering the negative terminal of the battery snap connector where the resistor leads meet
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I'm almost done with the circuit here, so just a little bit longer and before you know it will be finished
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And then I can test the circuit to see if it actually works. Now I can test the circuit with the 9-volt battery
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I'll just attach it to the battery snap connector. And now it's time to flip the switch and see if it works
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It works. Be sure to watch part two to follow along to how to make the Chewing Gumb Box project box
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That way we can finish our Chewing Gumb Box LED nightlight project
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I'll see you next time. Remember to keep at it and stay motivated
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Thanks for watching
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