anyone for knight rider style LED lights? hehehe

[shocksyde]

we all know the black knight rider car. and we all know the coolest part of the car, the red lights in the front. well, have a look see at this! http://www.74.co.uk/lizard/555/k-rider.html

doesnt look too hard, and would look REALLY cool. i'm thinking about incorperating it into my keyboard, i've got room...i got nothin else to do...**** this mod fever!

shock

[Cygnus-X1]

Hey that would be cool. lol

[Szech]

I think the coolest part about the car was that it talked http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif. But the lights were cool too. Best of luck on that project.

[Graham]

A few years ago I would have designed a PCB for that......mmmmmm might do that.
If I do I will post it, dont hold your breath though.

G

Edit... I think that you could easily take the no of LED's to 10 and it would probably cost no more.... thinking....

[This message has been edited by Graham (edited 11-22-2000).]

[shocksyde]

i wanna try it with blue LEDs

[JayMan]

been there, made that. I dunno if it is available in the US, but here in australia you can buy a kit to make it, we done it at skewl in yr 10, part of the requirements from skewl is that we have to modify and make the pcb ourself, easy done. If you want i could post some pics from it, it uses 16 LED's (i think, havent looked at it for a while) and can be easily modded to power 12volt globs. Wasn't that hard and didn't take long to make. If you want more info email me jayman81@optushome.com.au

JayMan

[This message has been edited by JayMan (edited 11-22-2000).]

[shocksyde]

jayman, you think it would be possible to put it in my keyboard? or would the pcb be too big to fit in there?

shock

[JayMan]

ok, well since i don't have a digital camera i chucked the PCB on the scanner, the actual dimensions are 94mm (led side) x 86mm. You could minuaturize it slightly, but because of the IC's used with this design i don't think it could be reduced dramatically. i drew up the PCB design using a program called "easytrax". again, just email me if you wish for more info (as i may not get back to this post right away, jayman81@optushome.com.au ). Here we go, my first post with images. The small pot on the 1st pic is used to control the speed at which the lights chase back and forth.
<IMG SRC="http://www.geocities.com/jayman08/temp/knightrider1.jpg" border=0>
<IMG SRC="http://www.geocities.com/jayman08/temp/knightrider2.jpg" border=0>

JayMan

[JayMan]

whoo hoo the pics worked. As for the LED's i used hi-intensity red LED's, but feel free to use whichever colours u have available (i woulda prefered blue but couldnt' get any at the time). As for putting it inside your keyboard, don't think it would fit "inside", but pcb could be eaily mounter underneath it and perhaps mount the led's in the keyboard. Or what is wrong with putting it in a free drive bay? or near your on/off button for ya PC, have it hooked up to the switch so instead of the boring little green light u can have the kightrider lights goin, just a thought.

edit: was designed for use with 9v-12v from memory, but tested and it worked at lower voltages just led's were alittle less bright, could be helped with the change of a resistor i would think. (just would have to be careful not to kill the led's, altho they do have a nice little smell n fizz sounds as they burnt out hehehe)

JayMan

[This message has been edited by JayMan (edited 11-22-2000).]

[Cygnus-X1]

Another Idea would be to use fiber optics.
That is something I have in mind if I ever decide to create a super duper flashy looking case. heh heh

[JayMan]

For anybody interested, the following is an email from shock, he asked a couple of good questions that some of you may have been thinking, also the following is the reply to his email from me just to answer them questions.
ok, lemme ask ya something. i see on your photos that the LEDs are in fact
very close to the pc board. is there a way to make it so that they arent on
the pcboard? can you use some wires and extend them farther away? i think
i've decided to put them in an extra drive bay a you suggested, i got more
room in there. and also, could it be configured to use only like 6 LEDs
(them blue ones are expensive as **** right now!!!).

Yep the LED's are actually mounted on the pcb in my design (the case i made has a perspex window which they shine through, was just made as a standalone unit to to be used for anything, but now that you suggested the idea hehe i might think about doing it for my system). The LED's can easily be wired in rather than directly mounted to pcb (spare IDE cable around??? just use it, all wires kept nice n neat in the bundle rather than havin heaps of loose wires. OK about the 6 LED's rather than 16.... could possibly be done by modding this design, OR alternatively i also have a "rolling dice" PCB, uses 6 LED's, it uses a push button switch which makes it look like all LED's are lit (but actually just switching in very quick succession), when the swicth it released one LED stays lit. This switch could easily be replace with a variable resistor to control the chase rate, only difference is this chase will only go one direction as appossed to the knightriders back and forth movement. Alternatively, uses 8 LED's, which is half of the knightrider design, but double hook up each LED. Many different idea's (could also go for 16 but altenate red-blue-red-blue etc.... Lemme know what ya think and i should be able to help ya further. I will also post these emails on the board just for anybody else who may be interested.

JayMan

Hope this helps anybody else interested, as always any questions email me just incase i don't get around to this post for a while.

JayMan