Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Motion activated night light

Last night our neighbors were robbed while being inside the house. Tonight I was feeling uneasy and wanted some way to be able to know if someone is in the house. So I searched my lab and found a motion sensor I had ordered a couple of years ago and a 3 Watt white LED. Laying around was also a 12 Volt power supply from an old router, a dirt cheap DC-DC converter that I had ordered in bulk and some resistors. There was only one ingredient missing, the MOSFET. I have an envelope filled with all kinds of electronic components in a TO-220 package. After a while and many 7805 regulators I found one that luckily could work with the 3.3V output of the motion sensor. I connected the power supply to the DC-DC converter and configured it to 4V accounting for the losses from the transistor. The converter's negative pin was connected to the sensor's negative pin and the transistor's source pin. The converter's positive pin was connected to the sensor's positive pin and the LED's positive pin. The sensor's output was connected to the translator's gate through a 220 Ohm resistor. Finally the LED's negative pin was connected to the transistor's drain pin. I double checked the connections and plugged it to the mains. And voila, a motion activated night light. Now I can sleep a little easier. Here is a picture of the contraption

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