A later version of the sensor light.

I like iterating on the same hardware.

It’s all about learning new things, then applying them next time you make something.

Each version should get better, and more ideal.

This is the sensor light, i think version 6, and I’ve added more surface mount components and taken some functions from hardware into software.

  I’ve taken away the potentiometer for adjusting the darkness at which the light activates, and the brightness pot.

I put both of these as software values, as in most cases you will want the LED at full brightness and use a shade if you need to or increase the load limiting resistor. Darkness falls quickly and a fixed software value for the LDR works fine.

I’ve left the delay potentiometer on the board as I think this is something you might want still want to adjust.

I changed a lot of parts to surface mount as I feel they can replace a normal component well enough; in that good sized SMT parts are really not that much harder to solder, are now readily available, are available in similar ratings and that after all take up a lot less board space.

In terms of circuit changes, reiterating has allowed me to add a resistor in series with the potentiometers to limit current in case of a fault which I had with some models of potentiometer, move to the cheaper 3 pin PIR sensor and move the programming pins to the centre of the board for a possible right angled programming header.