Similar to the last post, I whipped this up like a year ago and just realized today I’ve never posted it.
The house I live in right now has a central hallway connecting the front to the back, where the “front” includes the one bathroom (door in top-right of photo) and the “back” includes the two bedrooms (doors on left and behind photo).
Of course, this makes navigating to the bathroom in the middle of the night a bit tricky. I had the idea one night after playing with some COB LED strips that I could probably find one so thin it’d fit hidden under the lip of the step, and then I could just make a motion activated driver for it dimmed down to such a low current that it wouldn’t disrupt your vision too badly at night like even a cell phone light does.
5MM thick 5V COB LED strip, check.
And of course, as soon as I went looking for 5V or 12V all-in-one motion controlled switches, I realized there would surely be a motion-activated, battery-powered LED strip driver. Of course there would. Even better, this one has a built-in photocell and a mode where it won’t turn on if it’s already bright enough. $20 for 2! (I didn’t use the included LED strip because the thin hideable COB strip looks FAR better).
So at this point, the project was so successful I’d barely contributed anything myself! But the strips were still WAY too bright. I cut each to length then added a series resistor between the driver and the strip. I forget what the values were exactly but I tested them with a 5V bench supply so as to limit the total current into the strip to something like 10mA. LEDs are QUITE efficient when under-driven, so even burning only 50mW, the strips put out plenty of light to see where the steps are at night, but definitely not enough to dazzle or disorient someone who just woke up. And the biggest advantage – since they draw only 50mW, the battery consumption of the finished product is dominated by self-discharge!
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