Hey guys long time lurker, learned alot about LEDs from this site and eventually helped lead me to this little project. Figured I would post a little about it and hopefully give some other readers a few ideas along the way.
So I've got a pig problem at my parents and they have definitely learned to stay away during daylight hours hehe. So here in Texas its legal to kill feral hogs at night and here is what I came up with. Note, not all the ideas are mine. I first seen a variation of these lights on Amazon, they wanted way too much money for the light output and no bells or whistles.
So heres my light its on mounted in a $5 ammo box from Harbor Freight. Its got a standard ebay model PIR infrared motion sensor and a Photocell On/Off to help conserve battery.
Here is a picture of the guts:
Im using a standard 12V 10AHish lead acid battery. The Photocell is wired directly past the on/off switch that way I could have a hard on/off. With the photocell it only comes on at dusk, off at dawn. The PIR motion sensor was pretty neat. It allowed me to fine tune the ON delay, as well as the sensitivity. I didn't want it too sensitive, as I didn't want it turning on with blowing grass or falling leaves. I set the ON delay to roughly 30 seconds as I figured that would also help conserve battery life. I wanted it to be self sufficient for about 2 weeks without needing a charge. This I based off activity at the feeder as well as Ma my lights would pull.
Now the tricky part was that the digital output of the PIR sensor could only switch about 50ma of current. This is not nearly enough for the brightness I wanted, so I had to find a 12v relay. I found a 12 N.O. relay at the local electronics store for about 59cents. Now the problem arose that my relay coil pulled about 90Ma to operate. Once again I had to start thinking... What I remembered from college (EET degree) was that I could use an NPN transistor to use a small amount of logic lvl high signal to operate something like a coil. Well I couldn't exactly remember the circuit, so I did a little research and found a nice little IC chip. A darlington transistor array. (also about 59c). This combined with a zener diode to prevent any bounce from the relay finally made my relay work. Now these lights I found on amazon / ebay and they are just simple LED strips and T10 dome lights for auto use. All told I think I spent about 10 bucks in lights. I built my circuit on a breadboard I had laying around. And used mostly 20Ga stranded copper wire to wire everything up. I could have used smaller wire but the wire lugs I already had, along with the wire. I could have utilized a few higher wattage LEDs and heat sinks but I didn't want so much light that it would scare the pigs.
So all in all I have about 30bucks or so in this light, including wire and lugs. Much cheaper and more fun than buying on amazon.
Well theres my first project in lighting since college really and just thought I would share. I'm not sure if this light belongs in this section but I figured it would be considered budget by most
Since that light I've also built one much smaller and using an Rf remote latch switch to control it from about 500yards. As I get some pictures I'll try to put up some info on it as well.
If anyone wants to know more details feel free to message me, i'd also like some critique on what I could've done better!
So I've got a pig problem at my parents and they have definitely learned to stay away during daylight hours hehe. So here in Texas its legal to kill feral hogs at night and here is what I came up with. Note, not all the ideas are mine. I first seen a variation of these lights on Amazon, they wanted way too much money for the light output and no bells or whistles.
So heres my light its on mounted in a $5 ammo box from Harbor Freight. Its got a standard ebay model PIR infrared motion sensor and a Photocell On/Off to help conserve battery.
Here is a picture of the guts:
Im using a standard 12V 10AHish lead acid battery. The Photocell is wired directly past the on/off switch that way I could have a hard on/off. With the photocell it only comes on at dusk, off at dawn. The PIR motion sensor was pretty neat. It allowed me to fine tune the ON delay, as well as the sensitivity. I didn't want it too sensitive, as I didn't want it turning on with blowing grass or falling leaves. I set the ON delay to roughly 30 seconds as I figured that would also help conserve battery life. I wanted it to be self sufficient for about 2 weeks without needing a charge. This I based off activity at the feeder as well as Ma my lights would pull.
Now the tricky part was that the digital output of the PIR sensor could only switch about 50ma of current. This is not nearly enough for the brightness I wanted, so I had to find a 12v relay. I found a 12 N.O. relay at the local electronics store for about 59cents. Now the problem arose that my relay coil pulled about 90Ma to operate. Once again I had to start thinking... What I remembered from college (EET degree) was that I could use an NPN transistor to use a small amount of logic lvl high signal to operate something like a coil. Well I couldn't exactly remember the circuit, so I did a little research and found a nice little IC chip. A darlington transistor array. (also about 59c). This combined with a zener diode to prevent any bounce from the relay finally made my relay work. Now these lights I found on amazon / ebay and they are just simple LED strips and T10 dome lights for auto use. All told I think I spent about 10 bucks in lights. I built my circuit on a breadboard I had laying around. And used mostly 20Ga stranded copper wire to wire everything up. I could have used smaller wire but the wire lugs I already had, along with the wire. I could have utilized a few higher wattage LEDs and heat sinks but I didn't want so much light that it would scare the pigs.
So all in all I have about 30bucks or so in this light, including wire and lugs. Much cheaper and more fun than buying on amazon.
Well theres my first project in lighting since college really and just thought I would share. I'm not sure if this light belongs in this section but I figured it would be considered budget by most
Since that light I've also built one much smaller and using an Rf remote latch switch to control it from about 500yards. As I get some pictures I'll try to put up some info on it as well.
If anyone wants to know more details feel free to message me, i'd also like some critique on what I could've done better!
