**How to Hack a Normal LED Light Bulb into a Realistic Flickering One**
As we all know, horror movies often have one thing in common - the light starts flickering without a good reason. But why does this happen? It's not because someone switched it on and off really fast, but rather due to the eerie atmosphere created by the flickering light.
In this Halloween episode, I will show you how I hack this normal LED light bulb into a realistic flickering one for your Halloween party or to scare your friends. Let's get started!
**Choosing the Right Light Bulb**
First of all, let's take a look at our light bulb. As you can see, the packaging is horrible, but I chose this cheap one from China for a good reason. When I try to open it, I don't even need force to unscrew the front and the back of the bulb. Here's a comparison to a pretty high-quality LED bulb from LG - it's not possible to get inside without destroying the whole thing, so get a cheepy for testing purposes.
**Safety First**
I used my Suicide AC wire here and just took the wires up to my socket, but that is really dangerous - remember I'm playing with 230 volts which can kill me. So, for safety reasons, I covered the connections with electrical tape.
**Testing the Bulb**
Now, let's just do a quick test, and great! It lights up. I unscrewed the top cover, and there you can see the power connections for the LEDs. Just a quick measurement here - those LEDs get around 23 volts DC, which means there must be a power supply inside right? And yes, there is one inside, which makes things easier.
**Switching TC Current On and Off**
Okay, switching TC current on and off is really easy with a mass fet here. I have the bus 11 which can handle voltages up to 50 volts and 30ms so it'll work.
**Using Arduino Uno as Testing Microcontroller**
At first, I used the Arduino Uno as testing microcontroller, and since an nend Channel Moss Pat can only connect the LED to ground, I disconnect the ground wire of the LED from the power supply. Here's the schematic for the test - I used the PWM pin 3 of the Arduino to generate random voltage values which will control the Gate of the M fat.
**Using 80 Tiny 85**
But the Arduino doesn't really fit inside the bulb, so let's use an 80 tiny 85 to shrink it down a bit. I just changed the PWM PIN to pin zero and used my homemade programming Shield to program the 80 tiny - check out my other video if you don't know how that works.
**Generating Nice 5 Volts from 24V Power Supply**
I also used a 5-fold regulator to generate nice 5 volts from the 24v power supply. Here's the schematic for the final design, but first, let's test it on the RedBoard because testing is always important - and it still works just fine.
**Making It Small**
Time to make it small! I soldered the 100 nanofarad moving capacitors directly to the LM7805. I cut the notused pins of the 80 tiny and sold the 10K pull-up resistor from reset to VCC, and I soldered the 10K pull-down resistor between gate and source of the mass pad.
**Sealing the Deal**
That looks nice! Give it power, and it still works. Let's seal the deal with hot glue because I don't want those pins touch each other inside the small case which could lead to damages. And I also used electrical tapee to isolate the M pad body and the voltage regulator body.
**Final Test and Scaring Friends**
I stuffed everything inside the case, made one final test to confirm the functionality - now it's time to scare your friends or whoever by replacing the regular light bulb with this modified one when he will come home, he will just think nope nope nope I'm moving out!
**Conclusion**
That was my Halloween video. I hope you liked it! Maybe you subscribe definitely check out my Instructible site for more awesome projects with more information handwritten by me, and also check out my Facebook Twitter and all that Social Media stuff - stay creative, and I will see you next time!