QuinLED-Quad
Hardware guide
If you are looking for information about the board and it’s capabilities, please take a look over here first.
To build the QuinLED-Quad you are going to need several components which are listed below. As a little disclaimer, please take a look at this article about my shopping links. After reading that, make sure to also take a look at the additional hardware and tools you might need to be able to complete this project. And last but not least, check out my article about 12v or 24v LED strips and what to watch out for while buying (The color white) and what my favorite strips are!
If you have any questions about the components, let me know in the comments!
Total costs for a single board
A single fully built QuinLED-Quad board will cost you below 10$ in components. That value is a bit skewed though, because it’s calculated using bulk bought components. The ESP32 development board is the majority of the cost. Buying minimum quantities of all the components will make it a bit more expensive per board.
Board Summary
You need the following quantities and components:
Components needed
Most components come in multiples of 5 or 10. Especially for the smaller boards I will try to link to several batch sizes available so you don’t immediately have to buy the amount for 10 or more boards. Of course, if you do, the per board the price becomes (much) cheaper! Also when buying larger amounts of components you slowly but surely amass common components used in hardware tinkering and they are convenient to have lying around!
All components are selected so that they can be soldered by hand, no hot air/SMD soldering equipment is necessary. If you do have this equipment available it is recommended to use though!
All amounts of the components will be listed in green text. The amount listed there is for building a single board!
Experimental Aliexpress Wish List
I’m trying the new Aliexpress Wish List feature, it should take you to a list where all the components needed to build a QuinLED-Quad. It’s the minimum amount of all the components but make sure to check the list below anyway to make sure you get the right sizes and amounts for all the components!
Click here to go to the wish list
QuinLED-Quad PCB boards
- 1x QuinLED-Quad PCB
I always order my boards from dirtypcbs.com and they haven’t failed me yet. If you order a protopack you get anywhere from 10 to 12 boards in total. If you include shipping, their prices are very competitive! You can find the current version 1 revision 4 board here:
Merged boards are now also available, if you want to order multiple designs on a single PCB, click here to see which versions are available.
–update 2019-02-13 – v1r5 changes
I’ve made a small change to the design adding a 4.7kΩ 0805 resistor to the data pin of the DS18B20 as a pull-up. Although there are articles on the internet suggesting a resistor is not necessary I’ve noticed spotty behaviour of the temperature sensor which the resistor could fix. The above link is fixed and I’m in talks with DirtyPCB to change all boards currently in the order process to the new board. I’ve also added the needed resistor in the hardware guide below.
Gerber files?
I currently do not have the gerber files available. I might release these in the future so you can use your own favorite board house but in the past I’ve had issues where people would keep using old versions because that’s what they downloaded at some point in time. That complicates things such as optimizing and improving the design over time. Also, I know dirtyPCB’s can make my design correctly and they also give me a little kickback if someone places an order there, which helps me again to make and test new revisions, etc.
MH-ET-Live ESP32 development board
The main brains of the dimmer is the ESP32. Instead of using the raw modules I opted to use a ready-made development board so that it’s much easier to solder and comes with everything you need such as the USB port and a voltage converter. This also allows for the unique stacked design of the QuinLED-Quad making it very compact.
*Although different brands/boards can be used, some ESP32 development boards have different pin-outs which will not work!
- 1x MH-ET-Live ESP32 Development board
1x MH-ET-Live ESP32 development board
10x MH-ET-Live ESP32 development boards (If you plan on doing multiple boards or other projects, get the 10 pack, they become much cheaper in bulk!)
DC-DC Voltage converter
Because the input voltage of the board (en thus output and LEDs) can be anything between 6.5v to 28v we need to convert voltage for the ESP32 development board to 5v. For this we use a mini voltage converter which is soldered to some standard pins. This is the same converter as was used on the QuinLED-OG!
- 1x Mini DC-DC converter to 5v
5 pcs Mini DC-DC converter 6.5v~28v to 5v output
Female headers
Because we want to use all the available space as efficiently as possible we’re using some female headers to raise up the ESP32 Development board. Because we don’t need all the pins this board provides and we can use the space for other things, the pin headers have been divided and you are going to need several different lengths.
- 2x 3 pins 2.54mm female header
- 2x 12 pins 2.54mm female header
Multiple sizes of 2.54mm female headers
Screw terminals
To secure all the wires to the board you are going to need several screw terminals. I personally use different colors for input, output and GPIO but buying multiple colors does make it more expensive (buying multiple colors gets you a lot more then you need).
- Per QuinLED-Quad you need
- 1x Board power input terminal
- 1x Positive output terminal
- 2x Dimming channel output terminals
So that makes 4x terminal input blocks in total (each block has 2 inputs)
Board power input
For voltage input I like to use 2 Pin Black terminals
10 Pcs 2 pin BLACK 5.0mm Screw Terminal
100 Pcs 2 pin BLACK 5.0mm Screw Terminal
Positive output
For the Positive output terminals I like to use Red
20 Pcs 2 pin RED 5.0mm Screw Terminal
100 Pcs 2 pin RED 5.0mm Screw Terminal
Dimming channel output
For the Dimming channel outputs I like to use green terminals
20 Pcs 2 pin GREEN 5.0mm Screw Terminal
100 Pcs 2 pin GREEN 5.0mm Screw Terminal
*If you wish to use a single 4 pin output terminal this will also work!
2.54 Male Pin headers
To mount the DC-DC converter and have the resistors underneath it we need to raise up the DC-DC converter a little bit. The easiest way to do this is to use simple 2.54 male pin headers.
- 8x 2.54 Male Pin Headers
20 pcs 40 pin 2.54mm pin header strip (Silver)
20 pcs 40 pin 2.54mm pin header strip (Gold)
2.54mm Double-height angled surface mount pin headers
For the GPIO pins you need to get some surface mount angled pin headers. Since this boards is so small, there was no space left to use through-hole pin headers. But after testing it’s easy to solder by hand or hot air! Once mounted you can easily connect dupont cables to hook up externals sensors!
- 3x 2.54mm male double-height angled surface mount pin header
5Pcs 2.54mm male double row angled surface mount pin headers
0805 resistors
Not 100% required because the ESP32 has internal pull-up/down’s but putting an extra external resistor helps the ESP32 out and makes sure everything works correctly.
- 4x 0805 10k Ohm resistor
- 1x 0805 4.7k Ohm resistor
*You will need a tweezer to put these into place, make sure to check out the tools section!
100 Pcs 0805 resistor (Has both 4.7k and 10k available)
0805 0.1 uF Capacitor
To stabilize power delivery to all components capacitors are used. In the case of the QuinLED-Quad only one is needed for the temperature sensor (3.3v rail). To make soldering by hand or hot air possible we’re using 0805 size capacitors.
- 1x 0805 0.1 uF Capacitor
*You will need a tweezer to put these into place, make sure to check out the tools section!
SMD Diode
A diode is in place to protect the ESP32 module from reverse feeding the other components on the board. This also means that when you power the ESP32 module using USB to program it, other components on the board will not be supplied with power.
*Since the onboard temperature sensor is powered by the ESP32’s 3.3v bus, it will work!
Make sure not to NOT connect both a power supply AND USB at the same time!
- 1x SOD-123 1N5819 Diode
*You will need a tweezer to put these into place, make sure to check out the tools section!
Dallas DS18B20 TO-92 Temperature sensor
All the boards, including the QuinLED-Quad have a spot for a Dallas DS18B20 TO-92 temperature sensor. It’s a cheap way to add a little sensor to the board! The temperature measured with it will not be useful for room measuring (connect an external sensor using GPIO pins for this!) but it can show you how warm the board is getting for instance.
- 1x Dallas DS18B20 TO-92 temperature sensor
LED dimming MOSFETs
To switch the high current LEDs with the low power of the ESP32 we need some MOSFETs. On the QuinLED-Quad we use TO-252 size MOFSETs. Most important is that these MOSFETs trigger fully open at or below 3.3v!
I have tested two variants of these, the FDD8447L and the LR2905 and those both work fine. I generally use the FDD8447L because it has slightly better properties and is often a little bit cheaper too.
- 4x TO-252 MOSFET
FDD8447L
100 pcs FDD8447L TO-252 MOSFET
LR2905
Additional hardware components, tools and equipment
Above is all the components you need to assemble a complete QuinLED-Quad board! Often it’s best to order components for at least 5 boards, soldering doesn’t always go perfect and once you have one self-built Domotica device, it rarely stays at that number. If you do truly only need 1 or 2 boards, make sure to check out my component kits or even pre-made boards in this article!
Also, don’t forget, this article only lists all the components you need, not the tools and other accessories you might also require. Make sure to take a scroll through this article to see what you might also need so you don’t get frustrated if you don’t have it while building! If you still need LED strip check out this article for high quality (warm) white strips, here for RGB(W) strip. And to power it all, check out this article about power supplies!
p.s. If anything listed on here turns out to be wrong or the link has stopped working, please drop me a line using the contact form so I can correct it!
