#ARDUINO AS TIMER FOR STROBE LIGHT FULL#

The can claims it will cure in 3 minutes with sunlight, but I found it to be more like a whole afternoon. The resin I used is called Solarez, and I like how it contains a UV-activated catalyst so there's no fiddling with mixing anything: just pour it and set it in the sun. For the center modules, I just cast an M6 bolt in the resin, sticking out the back.Īfter wiring the lights and installing them in the mold, I poured casting resin over the lights, resistors, wires and all, then set it in the sun to cure. To build the light modules, I soldered the diodes/resistors together, and wired all the LED/resistor sets, then jammed everything in a mold.įor the left and right modules, I used a piece of rubber hose as the mold, and for the center modules, I used a 3/4' PVC cap.įor mounting the side modules, I added a piece of 1/8' steel rod with a kink inside of the plastic. I designed the strobe controller module to provide just this. I decided that I was going to use a common ground in my light modules, meaning that I would provide a switched positive signal to each unit/channel. I used the nearest common value of 120 ohms.įor the white/blue, I need ~250 ohms. 8.4v - 4.4v = 4v across the resistor, and ohms law (V = IR, R = V/I) says that to get 30mA from 4v, I need 4 / 0.030 = 133.3 ohms.

#ARDUINO AS TIMER FOR STROBE LIGHT FULL#

If I put two blue in series, the forward voltage would be 6.6v for the pair, which would get very dim with low batteries.įor the red/amber, I calculate that I need a ~150 ohm resistor in series with the pair to get around 30mA with a full battery. I decided to pair up the amber and red LEDs in series to get a total forward voltage of 4.4v, but to leave the blue and white LEDs as single diodes for a forward voltage of just 3.3v. The Arduino nano has a minimum input of 6v, so that happens to work out nicely.

I am using two li-ion cells in series to power this project because that gives me a nice voltage range: 8.4v when full, down to ~6v when empty. The red and amber LEDs have a recommended current of 30mA, while the blue and white are recommended to take 20mA. I used red, amber, blue, and white LEDs for the light modules. See the last step for the reactions I have noted from police. I am comfortable using this light, but if you have reservations about the colors, I recommend simply omitting blue from your project. Furthermore, I have made only sparing use of the blue lights in the various strobe patterns. However, because I don't want any trouble with the law, I am only using one blue LED on the front and one on the rear, compared with 14 other LEDs on the front and 18 others on the rear. I decided to feature blue lights on the front and rear because I find the color blue to be especially attention-grabbing at night. Isn't that impersonating an officer or something? Now is a good time to address something that I'm sure plenty of you have noticed: there are blue lights on my safety strobe system.

Front Center: 6 white LEDs (C), 1 blue LED (B).

The blue (B) and center (C) channels run the center modules identically on the front and the rear, the rear red (RR) channel is wired to both the left and right rear modules, and lastly, the left and right channels are used for the left front and rear, and the right front and rear, respectively. Now, you'll notice that I have six modules but five channels, so what gives? There's a little bit of overlap. While my original idea consisted mainly of a single red light to the rear, my final design had five lighting channels controlling six light modules:

Designing the strobe controller shield Īnd as a bit of a teaser, here's what the lights look like on the finished product:.

This project turned out to be somewhat lengthy with a lot of steps, so here's what you can expect to see in this instructable: With as much time and effort as I have spent on this project, it seems a little silly for it to just be me and my bike with one light system, so I am writing this instructable in the hopes that you guys can make one of your own! I am selling kits so can build your own (info is in the last page).

Twelve possible modes with the 4x3 keypad (or more if you are handy with the code).

Here are the features of the strobe controller: I am very pleased with how it turned out.

The strobe controller module is a PCB shield I designed and got manufactured specifically for this project, and is actually the first PCB I have designed. So here’s the skinny on what my bicycle now has: The idea snowballed from there and I now have a super fancy bicycle safety light system using an Arduino strobe controller shield, which I designed just for this purpose. This project started off innocently enough I just wanted to add one permanent light to my bicycle for when I ride at night.

Arduino as timer for strobe light