Hacking LED Floodlight

Third party integrations
1

Hi all,

I’ve tried a forum search but to no avail…

I would like to buy a few (7-9) LED mains voltage RGB floodlights to illuminate the lovely new ceiling/roof we have at home. Each one of these comes with it’s own IR control, but I’ve not fund anything available, or hacked, to allow joint and simultaneous control of all lights at once. The on/off bit is easy, I can just use SONOFF switches with some custom firmware to operate under HASS, but I’m lost for a solution for the RGB colour control. So far I’ve thought of using NodeMCU’s in each unit??

If I’m being truthful, the thing that is bothering me most here is the fact I don’t generally have many original thoughts, and I’m nervous that I cannot find any references to people wanting to control these lights all at once. Surely I’m not the first to want to do this? Am I missing an off-the-shelf light that does this?

Two examples of the type of lights I am looking at. These will be mounted facing upwards around the inside of the house;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10W-RGB-LED-Dimmable-Flood-Light-Waterproof-Spotlight-IR-Remote-Control-IP65-/142238687004?hash=item211e161f1c:g:gOQAAOSwgtJXTqt5

Thanks in advance for any help or references.

2

Are they placed in close enough proximity that an IR blaster would be sufficient?

3

Thanks for the reply.

I assume you mean a single IR TX that would have line-of-sight to each light? Unfortunately not, walls and other housey bits get in the way.

Your comment did give me one idea though, is it possible to set-up a wifi device (eg. Arduino or NodeMCU) that has a IR TX attached to it? If I mounted one of these in each light could I group them together in HASS and control all the lights that way?

4

You could probably manage something with a couple piZeros with wifi USB sticks and IR TX boards running on the GPIO pins.

As for group control, there is an unofficial group light component that a forum member created. I’m not sure if it will work with IR lights, but it’s a start.

5

@SethKins - did you get anywhere with this - was looking into something along these lines myself.

6

@Sethkins - apparently MiLight makes one like this that might work with the HA component for Milight/Limitlessled - see here -
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Smart-WIFI-LED-Lamp-RGBW-flood-light-10w-30w-50w-dimmable-floodlight-spot-ceiling-refletor-focos/400805_32409864585.html

hope this helps/gives ideas!

7

I did actually, thanks for asking!

I basically brought the cheapo 10W RGB units (from banggood) and opened them up. I cut out the combined power supply and IR control unit and put those in the bin. That left me with the housing and the RGB chip itself.

I than bought 10W 12V led power supplies and the little Magic Home Arilux Chips that are based on ESP8266. I reflashed these using firmware from another thread here on HA, and hey presto I had HA compatible MQTT control. I set up each of my 6 lights subscribing to an identical topic and they now act as one through the HA front end or via Alexa.

I’m very happy with the solution.

2 Likes
8

@SethKins - thanks for taking time out to respond! Would you be willing to post a pic or two of what you did? I’m very curious to pull of a similar thing. Maybe a parts list/links to the items you use dif you could - it would be very helpful if you could. A shot of how they look on the house would be cool too if I’m not asking too much.

Thanks again for the feedback!

9

I can do that - text, photos and links. Give me a few days…

2 Likes
10

@SethKins - Thanks so much - I’ll be watching for your post - thanks for taking time out to help!

11

@SethKins - just pinging you to see if you had any luck putting this info together - still looking forward to it! Thanks for the help!

12

@vexter0944

SINCERE apologies for the length of time I have taken to get to this. House move, wife going back to work (leaving me with two toddlers) and a few other bits and bobs conspired against me.

This is the first time I’ve ever attempted a guide, so please bear with me. I am happy to take questions and clarifications.

This hack comes with mains voltage working, please take appropriate care

This is the basic unit. Available from eBay, Bangood, GearBest and all the usual places:
https://www.banggood.com/10W20W30W50W-Waterproof-IP65-RGB-LED-Flood-Light-Outdoor-Garden-Security-Lamp-AC85-265V-p-1110425.html?rmmds=search

I went for the 10W unit, as I am looking for effects, not “task” lighting. Pick your poison…

2017-05-10 10.15.26.jpg3456×4608 1.76 MB

Take the front off and you have basically the controller/power unit, LED chip and IR receiver. Cut out the electrics leaving;

2017-05-10 10.16.57.jpg3456×4608 1.86 MB

I wired a 7.5Ohm 3W resisitor in series with the red LED line. I am no expert, but I did a little reverse engineering on the controller and also tried to find the specs on the LED chip itself to work out appropriae power supply. The red line needs a voltage drop (you MUST use a constant voltage supply, not constant current, for this project) and the 3W derives from that aspect. No resistor on blue or green).

2017-05-10 10.18.37.jpg3456×4608 1.52 MB

After frying two controllers by using variable V LED drivers I worked out my stupid error and settled on this 6W 220v-12v supply. It is plenty bright enough for my needs! Also, it has the advantage of being able to fit without removing it from its case, which when dealing with a metal light fitting and mains voltage is good news for me.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222301453440?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2648&var=521139843634&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

The controller for this project is this one, with custom firmware flashed to give MQTT control. I have multiple lights pub/sub to the sane topics so they all act as one. I have no need to control each one differently.

https://www.banggood.com/ARILUX-AL-LC01-Super-Mini-LED-WIFI-Smart-RGB-Controller-For-RGB-LED-Strip-Light-DC-9-12V-p-1058603.html?rmmds=search

I went for the base model LC-01 as it fulfills my needs, There are others (RGB+W, IR controllers, RF controllers) depending on what you want and need.

I popped this out of its case as it is shorter without the cable exiting from the end, wrapped it in kapton tape and wired everything together.

2017-05-10 10.19.15.jpg4608×3456 1.67 MB
2017-05-10 10.42.33.jpg3456×4608 1.53 MB

Then it all goes back together and you are in business!

The link to the forum covering the LC-01 controller work required for this project.

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/alternative-firmware-for-arilux-al-lc03-for-use-with-mqtt-and-home-assistant-rgb-light-strip-controller/6328

ANY questions please shout.

Once again, sorry for my tardiness.

John.

2 Likes
13

@SethKins -

THANKS for taking time out to put this all together! This helps a lot. I may have questions once I get going, but I think you’ve got a lot of the hard work out of the way. No worries on the timing of the post - we all have very busy lives - I know the routine well! I REALLY appreciate your effort in getting this back to us. Hoping to get into this very soon!

14

Attempting a similar project with the 10W RGB LED Floods. Instead of ordering more parts, I wanted to bypass the IR Remote, in an attempt to control the unit from an arduino. This will hopefully inject my own signal via the IR port.

1755×1527 347 KB

From current research, I see that I need to send inverted signals to the IR port (send LOW instead of HIGH). Starting my testing now and recording of the IR Codes sent by the remote.

If anyone here has any suggestions or can offer up some advice, I’d really appreciate it. Right now just working on one unit and hope to expand using a TLC5920 where I can then control up to 15 units.

15

I’m curious, What’s your wifi range like considering you are burying it in a metal enclosure?

1 Like
16

I fitted 2 ubiquiti ac-lite access points in the house last year. I’ve never given my wifi a second thought since that moment, it’s outstanding.

17

You can buy the stated pair from us & apart from that we offer commercial indoor/outdoor LED lighting solutions at affordable prices. Explore our store here & place your first right now!

18

How do I connect your Hykolity lights to HA?

19

I just purchased a few of the 15w floods from Melpro and was looking to try to integrate these with HA. I am going to crack one open to see what options I have inside or try to record the IR signals of the remote and reproduce them with HA. Any more thoughts or help on this before I get started would be greatly appreciated. These are the units specifically that I purchased.

20

These work great with home assistant with the magic home addon:
Novostella 25W LED RGB Flood Lights, Smart WiFi Outdoor Dimmable Color Changing IP66 Waterproof Stage Ligh https://amzn.eu/d/0z3HCFL

Haven’t figured out a way to sync those with other led strips or rgb lights or use them to actually create sort of a light show

1 Like