Drone LED strip

Small PCBs tightly packed with addressable LEDs to light up your drone, plane or any other RC vehicle.

Alexander

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Description

These simple PCBs were designed in KiCAD, ordered from PCBWay and hand-soldered. LEDs are programmable thanks to Betaflight drone firmware LED strip functionality. LEDs can change colors based on arm state, battery voltage, VTX power and many other factors.

More pictures and updates on this project are available at my Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/_cybermouse_/

Files

cable_guard_LED_ver-Body.stl Standard Tesselated Geometry - 81.53 kB - 12/21/2022 at 18:50		Download
cable_guard_LED_ver.FCStd CAD design of the LED holder x-extension-fcstd - 82.05 kB - 12/21/2022 at 18:50		Download
fp-info-cache fp-info-cache - 2.97 MB - 12/21/2022 at 18:48		Download
drone_LED_strip.kicad_pcb PCB design x-kicad-pcb - 458.64 kB - 12/21/2022 at 18:48		Download
drone_LED_strip.kicad_sch schematics x-kicad-schematic - 114.13 kB - 12/21/2022 at 18:48		Download

View all 8 files

Components

1 × LED strip PCB KiCAD project in the file section
20 × XL-0807RGBC-WS2812B https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/_XINGLIGHT-_C3646929.html
20 × 0402 SMD capacitor 100nF https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/_TDK-_C189396.html

Build Instructions

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1

Order parts

Order PCBs and parts from a PCB manufacturer like pcbway.com, nextpcb.com or jlcpcb.com
2

Assemble your PCBs

Solder the LEDs and capacitors using method of your choice. I highly recommend to have it assembled at a PCB manufacturer.
3

Connect the LED strip to the drone's flight controller