USB to PIR to LED-string interface PCB. 

I love listening to Clive ramble as he solders.

The videos where you realize projects are my favorite, would be great to see some more of them. To remove the photo film from the board I use the rough side of a sponge, that works great and the surface of the copper is afterwards perfect for soldering.

As a Frenchman, my favorite part was the guillotine. I really love the fact you make your own PCBs, for me it's more personal than using commercial route. Adds a layer of Independence and old-school.

PSML - "It's not stink finger" Thanks for brightening my day Clive :)

Was about to sleep at 3:15am and saw that you uploaded a video. That will be my go to sleep song

re. pick and place ... the cameras are mainly their for alignment (on older models of pick and place machines) esp when working with fine pitch components ... i don't think i've ever noticed any text on the bottom of the chips though ... once the pickup location is verified that's where the spool is loaded and then before any camera alignment the head usually scans with a laser to verify the parts dimensions and that the pickup was successful ... if the machine thinks its not correct then that component is moved to a reject bin. edit: also cool project im working on something similar with pir sensors / buzzers and relays. also +1 for the absence of a micro controller ;) :D

I had a 7 hour calculus 2 midterm today that is 24 pages long. I did not finish it and will be going back tomorrow to try and do just that. So, I am in an absolutely horrific and depressive mood so, a Big Clive project video is honestly exactly what the doctor ordered!!!!

perfect timing Big Clive, my wife is a glass sculpture artist and she recently asked me to make some PIR switched LED lights for her....... just the ticket. thanks!

Could you make a video showing how to design a PCB in software? You always show the schematic, then jump to the printout. I'd like to see how to make it on the computer.

You will lift the chip off and it will read: "Stop snooping around Clive!" ;)

"brown, black , green" i spent some effort of late learning all the colour bands. it is awesome looking at resistors and knowing their resistance! cheers BC! remember batman on the bridge!

19:18 amazing tool you got there. You also bent the legs manually but there is also a plastic help available that goes from narrower width to wider where you put the component in at the chosen width and the width determines the point where the legs are bent (manual action)

Really useful idea and a good video, Clive. Thank you. It would be great if you would share the manufacturer-name and part-number of the black 3-pole socket that resembles but (you implied) is not a DuPont socket, and of the mini-USB connector. Also, hopefully you or an associate or agent will manufacture and sell the bare boards on eBay so that we can bypass the board manufacturing process. More kit videos like this, please.

Reminds me to the 80s with lots of hole accidentally etched into cotton clothes of all types. Today I‘m happy to wait for Chinese to make the PCBs for me. They are even much more professional made. At the time you get used to double sided with real vias, you find yourself being more happy with 4 layers.

Funny how that crimp tool will be a real chore until one day, it becomes a strangely indispensable when the knack is acquired. I got one of the cheap china versions and have been using it for quite some time now, got it after you introduced it in an earlier video, and it was just a few weeks ago that the light bulb came on in my head and everything jived, suddenly it was just a piece of cake to build cables with it!

I have made several of these and the issue I had was that quiescent current on the PoundLand power bank drained it thereby reducing the time between charges. To counter this I made others with a battery management system and a 18650 cell. These last longer but have the slight disadvantage that when the battery gets down to about 3.7 volts the PIR becomes erratic, taking several on/off cycles before switching off the power to the LED lights. Still with 30 led's run via a low drop out regulator I can get run times of over 30 days for one in my bedroom. The light when triggered automatically is quite adequate for moving around the bedroom in the night or undressing if I am too lazy to put the bedroom light on.

Try flooded drilling when drilling with the photo resist still intact, use distilled water with a bit of detergent to lift out and float the resist. Thanks Clive great video.

LOL! "It's not stink finger."

I think with the second string of leds you ran into that problem with powerbanks where those control IC's have a minimal current draw they need to keep the output on. The first string triggers the output and that's why the second string works after putting the first one in briefly.

For etching I use this bag from an old etching set (pre 1990). It's sealed with two clamps so it's a pretty clean process, no open chemicals. The bag lies flat on the table and all you have to do is pressing on it repeatedly to make the solution move. Etches much faster than just letting it sit.

I could see a cool mod being to use USB-A female for the output that way you can use it modular in line with any USB powered light or device.

#stinkfinger lol. Always hilarious, Clive. Neat little adapter, btw. ;) One thing that might be worth mentioning (unless you already did further along the vid, and I've made the mistake of posting early too again), is that the BC547 has a collector current of only 100mA, while the 2N7000 FET has a current rating of 200mA. So either is probably fine for a small set of fairy lights, but might not handle running an LED / Neopixel strip.

Really nice project! Have you tried the laser printer toner transfer method for making pcbs? I have had excellent results using this method and no sticky goo. Plus you can do minor touch-ups of the transfer with a Sharpie!

Thanks for showing your PCB process. Have you ever tried using Ammonium Persulfate to etch instead of Ferric Chloride? I use it and prefer it to Ferric Chloride for these reasons: 1. Being a crystalline solid it has a very long shelf life. 2. It does not stain clothing or fingers. 3. Being a clear solution when prepared it is easy to see the etching progress while submerged. 4. Safe to use.

I wish I had seen this a week ago. Last weekend I made an LED light for my coat closet but rather than a PIR I used a big limit switch on the door itself with a 90 second timer in case I forgot to close the door fully. It works but turned out quite a bit more bulky. The pity is I have a few PIRs in stock for a pending project.

I've got a few of those radar ones around the house like this used as basic night-lights in the hallway etc. They're great for that random walk about at 3am as there's no need to manually switch in blinding lights! I use a small transistor to switch a 1W USB LED. With mine I use a LI-ION battery charger board and feed the radar and the LED the direct battery power. A single 18650 at about 1800mA capacity lasts about 6 weeks before the low voltage cutout.

JUST a suggestion DREMEL makes a moving stage press which permits longer life on solid carbide drills as the side forces are eliminated VERY cost effective

Love that you make your own circuit boards Big Clive

Thank you Clive, just ordered a load of these boards.

This is great thanks Clive, My wife has be hassling me about the lighting around the house at night. this will do the trick nicely.

That micro-usb connector is nice. Hand-doing the 5-pin SMT ones is a PITA.

I have just bought myself a UNI-T UT210E clamp multimeter. This can measure current up to 100A with 100mA resolution, 20A with 10mA resolution or 2A with 1mA resolution. And not only can it measure alternating currents, but also direct currents, thanks to the use of a Hall effect sensor *. It also has sockets for probes allowing you to measure voltage, resistance, continuity (with a wonderfully fast response on the beeper) and capacitance. The supplied probes have slip-on covers which leave only the very tip exposed, to reduce the risk of short-circuiting adjacent terminals. (As far as this meter is concerned, more probably on a crowded PCB than on a three-phase breaker panel; it's a bit flimsy for comfort up against the full force of the National Grid.) There is even a "buried live wire" detector function. Note that when measuring direct currents, it is necessary to null out the Earth's magnetic field, and on the 2A range the meter must not be moved much. The clamp-on current measurement function is excellent for testing PSU modules with separate + and - leads; simply clamp around the lead (several leads carrying current _in the same direction_ can be passed through the clamp, and the meter will indicate the total current flowing through all of them if any current is flowing through any of them). Easily **** (that's four stars, not a rude word). Note that a meter which is essentially identical electrically, but in grey instead of red, is also sold under the Voltcraft brand. * The Hall effect sensor uses the same phenomenon as the scan coils of a CRT: a stream of electrons can be deflected by an external magnetic field. Only this time, the electrons are moving through a solid slab of semiconductor material, as opposed to a vacuum. Using the device as a crude compass (well, it would be wrong not to): N = 0 mA. (zeroed while pointing in this direction), NE = 2 mA., E = 7 mA., SE = 9mA., S = 15 mA., SW = 11 mA., W = 6 mA., NW = 1mA. (meter lying flat, with clamp end pointing in compass direction). From further tests, it seems that the minimum reading on the meter is obtained with the clamp end of the meter pointing towards magnetic North, or somewhere just slightly West of there.

Ah, fond memories of the kit with a single sided copper board, a Sharpie and bottle of Mystery Fluid.

Lovely little project; for the next version it would be nice to have a timer included. The lights continually went off during your video, because you're not moving very much. When sitting around with friends/family, there could be 10-20 minutes stretches where everyone's talking and not moving very much. Having a 30 min timer from the time it detects movement would smooth that out. Thanks for sharing!

Hey, Clive, would you consider an updated tool video? I'd like to see what you keep in the shop and maybe some links ;)

And as luck would have it, the middle finger was the one that got that; making it that much harder to give an explanation for... Thanks for the good laugh especially with the "stinkfinger" reference. :-D

Could you make a Video on diy nightvision ? I would gladly provide a super low light CMOS cam :)

To bend resistors I put them at the edge on a right angle to the board. Bend the lead over the edge of the board. GIves a nice clean bend with the board thickness clearance on each side. I couldn't afford a nifty tool.

Clive, it would be great to see you do your thing with some smart home stuff, like WiFi mains plugs, smart bulbs, Nest smoke alarm etc.

Under that chip you will find the Kanji symbols that translate as "unnamed project1".

It's worth noting that some of the smaller PIR sensors use a chip that's different and is not susceptible to interference from WiFi. I use a bunch of these to trigger lighting in my home, and I was having issues with the Node MCU boards (esp8266) falsely triggering them when WiFi packets were being sent. HC-SR501 modules have this issue but the AM312 modules do not!

Very cheap (comparatively) UV exposure box: Buy a UV fly zapper, and remove the high voltage zapper part, leaving just the UV tubes. Then sandwich your board inside a glass photo frame and rest on top. Edit: Remove the photoresist BEFORE drilling the holes?

If the gel is clogging the holes, why not just remove the gel before drilling the holes?

You should keep the cutoff's for the resisters they make great wires. I love these little projects :) Thanks for the awesome videos Clive :)

v3 possibly size extended 2 or 3 mm so pir mount can be shifted to accommodate big pir mounted either way round? Or maybe use LED molex connector with a 90 deg pin so it lies flat

I'd love to see you compare fe4ic chloride with other etchant, like peroxide and acid. I know muriatic acid is hard to come by on the island, but laterly I've heard that vinegar does well.

you should consider measuring the current consumption of your PIR-modules. Some weeks ago I found out that the big ones I had draw in the order of 10 mA when inactive, which is totally unacceptable if you want to run them off battery. You could almost as well run the small string of LEDs with that current for as long time as the PIR-module. My small module, looking exactly the same like yours, drew in the µA-range in comparison.

As I said the last time you did a DIY PCB video, I think this blue film is a bit inconsistant in quality, I'm still to have good results with the stuff, although I think you've nailed it when you said you probably used too much heat. Many thanks for the help regarding this Clive, it's still driving me mad, but I shall try without using my clothes iron :)

I made one PCB when at school, but that was it. The majority of "PCB's" I used in my youth was Veroboard which worked well. In the past few years, I've been getting more professional and designing PCB's, assuming I'm making more than one copy of a circuit, but I get them manufactured in China. It was fascinating seeing you make your PCB's, but while I appreciate the art, it's got to be more expensive doing it that way, no? Especially if you take into your account the cost of things like that fabulous guillotine? It's also smelly and messy and it made me want to ask, why do you go through the hassle? The only advantage I can think of is that you'll have the finished item the same day, as opposed to the two-three days it takes for mine to get delivered. Are there other benefits? The second question was how do you make the transparencies you used? Many thanks for sharing of all your skills with us, sir.

Dave of EEVblog uploaded a video yesterday about etching board with just water.

Seems a bit more involved than the traditional kodak method. are there any advantages to this over the kodak photoresist that i was taught at school in the early 80's? we had a pint or half pint bottle of the kodak stuff that had a brush in the lid, you brush it onto the board into a thin uniform layer, let it dry in the dark, then expose the negative onto it (we used an overhead projector, placing the transparency on the glass, then the board over that, and then turning the lamp on long enough to expose it), and then right into the etch (it wasn't Ferric Chloride tho, it was white crystal powder that we mixed with water that went blue, and the copper etched away would be an aqua color, any idea what that stuff was, it worked better than the ferrochloric). i think the kodak stuff we used is the same thing they use on the pre-coated boards you can buy factory applied.

I suggest drilling the holes after you strip the mask! I'm sure you've hit upon that by now. Very nice circuit.

Yay! More bigclive projects please!

Your build videos are my favorites, great video Clive , thanks

Instead of using a micro-B connector for the power source, you could simply design a type-A edge connector into the PCB to skip the entire cable and connector. A rigid connection between the power bank and PCB would make it easier to hold the board in a specific orientation.

For high speed photo resist developing - Mr, Muscle oven cleaner. Spray it on, count to two, wash it off. When it's etched, use it to remove the mask, takes a smidgeon longer. (count to seven?).

Geez, if I was drilling all my holes by hand, I sure as heck would be using surface mount components where possible. You can get some pretty sizable surface mount resistors with their value printed on the top.

Clive, you have often mentioned that you like to keep your house / abode cool, pretty much well below the normal persons habitat (I'm not digging, you do you) , if the sodium bicarbonate solution was warmer, would you be more gentle when it comes to removal of the screen with the sponge?

Bigclive, Where did you get the microUSB connector? Links are appreciated. :)

I remember making a pcb at school, we used a program called “crocodile clips” (Windows 95) to design the circuit, not sure if that’s still around??..

One little optional mod, you could solder a USB A plug directly onto the PCB and use it like a USB flash drive but have it plugged into a USB charger or, if someone is daft enough to have them, mains sockets with USB outlets on them to use as a nightlight for those moments when you need to see where you're going for the midnight bog run... :)

I have given up making my own pcb's, JLCPCB will do you too many for $2 +postage, they have an online pcb design tool (EasyEDA) with the option to import files from other software packages.

Clive I guess the dupont female headers can be cut to 3-pin and be suitable also right ?

Hows about a island/node/terminal block type circuit, There is only about 7-9 nodes in this circuit.. Knife and pcb blank is good for quick projects. if there are no ic's unless you dead bug them.

Thanks clive. Very well done as usual. While I like LED porn just as much as you do, I feel the need to encourage you to make pinball/arcade videos. I would absolutely LOVE to get more insight into that spectrum of your lifestyle. Would be awesome if you could track down a 19" CRT to swap in your cabinet. Maybe viewers could help tracking 1 down? Thanks again clive. Keep up the great work.

I've had unpredictable results from the dry film resist, and sprays also. I've now settled on Kontakt-Chemie Positiv 20 spray, available on Rapid, as well as other websites.

I'd buy a kit version of this if there is one.

Looks like Clive is aiming to catch Santa when he comes down the chimney for his cookies.

Off topic: I have see there are a few super capacitors available on the likes of aliexpress and was wondering how these could be integrated into a solar/wind system as fast charging a temporary storage system that is used to charge lithium or other cells. Would the fast charging be an advantage in unstable light/wind conditions. LTS (love the show)

Clive, do you know - or could you check ;-) - whether these variable USB loads you use from time to time to test power banks and supplies can be used for 12-15 V supplies as well?

My RU-vid recommendations have more Mitchell brothers than an episode of eastenders set on Peggy's boys!

The old brown protruding member, ferric chloride / the dog ate my homework line....yeah... sure Clive. Lol. ;)

Great informative lecture in electronics , thanks so much

It really looked like you had a solder bridge on that 3-pin connector, but I guess not since it seems to be working.

Just soak the resist in a concentrated developer solution for a few minutes - it'll fall off by itself. Much easier than scrubbing at it with acetone, and you won't get gunk in the holes.

Question about your fancy lead-bender tool doohickey thing. Can you feed it the ammo belt packed components and crop a bunch in rapid succession?

Very educational. I have a project in mind for those PIR modules as well. That's a lot of work for a PCB. What do you plan to do with them?

Of course the light wouldn't go out, we were all moving as well.

You can use 90Degree pin to connect the IR sensor it will then go on the end, and it wouldnt matter way way the pins are.

Waits for the Clive auto on kits to become available to buy. ;)

Couldn't decide between a BJT or FET? Noticed the markings on the template there. Either would work.

Resistor crimper and shaper tool is nice

thank you for your video and your channel that I like to watch 👍

I like the "touch-activated" feature.

That method works with new pads, i'm wondering if the old, old type of copper plated pads where there's a substantial amount of copper would go as easy...probably not.

I've been getting good results from using the RCWL-0516 Doppler radar units instead of the PIR units.

How about a link to the easy to solder micro USB connector?

"It doesn't wash off...it will just wear out"......sounds like most fun debaucherous evenings

20:15 "sodium hydroxide which basically eats through it" I see what you did there Clive. Intentional or not, a pretty good pun.

OMG is that Riston film? It is! : ) 😎 I used to work at a factory that made it, it's really cool stuff! What version are you using? I would agree that a NaOH or KOH sol'n would be best to remove it, that's what we did when we tested the stripping times of different batches of Riston solutions. P.S. Humans actually make trace amounts of Acetone in our bodies when we digest fats instead of sugars. Sometimes people go into ketosis because of diabetes, or a ketogenic diet, and it causes them to be ill.

Any chance Clive will upload gerber files so we can ship it off to the cheep PCB manufactures? I would prefer that to buying an playing chemicals.

I use sodium carbonate mixed with instant coffee to make a very stinky black and white film developer.

Rapid Electronics is only a few miles from me and if I need anything I pop into their store... I hate going in there as it's one of those places you'll pop into wanting one thing and see 10 things you never knew you needed until you spotted them and then walk out with 11 things!

"It's not a stinky brown finger" lol lol lol.

Ah good morning Clive 👍

So the more pressing question, is exactly how many LEDs are in your house?

I think that components' underside is labelled "Got You"

36:00 Was the power bank turning off because the load was too small with that short LED string?

You should try some Chinese pcb maker, you would get a professionally looking board with far less work :-) and they would subside your program.

33:32 "I didnt click with it... click click click... click click click, click... click click... click click click, click" How could you not click with what is clearly the clickiest tool in existence? lol