Good day, I finally decided to join the board after several weeks of observing. Looks like you are all having a lot of fun over here.

I have a little project in the back of my mind, and I have tried building several solutions using my Radioshack Electronics Learning Lab.

I have finally come to the realization that I just don’t have enough knowledge about electronics for the project I want to tackle.

I am asking for some directional advice.

I want to build a motor cycle tail light (12 V supply), using high output LED’s with a feature that will cause the brake light to flash a few times when the brake is applied and then go solid. It serves three purposes, firstly it should be super bright, secondly it should demand attention from whomever is behind the motorcycle by flashing and finally it should be low heat, low power consumption.

I was able to build a simple flasher circuit using a 555 circuit that will do the flashing part, but I am at a loss for how I would build a switch that will trigger the flasher for a few seconds and then go steady.

I also tried building a little timer that will come on for a few seconds and then switch off, this will driver the flasher and then once it goes off I need another switch to keep the lights solid.

Obviously once the brake is released everything should switch off.

Any ideas and or direction would be greatly appreciated.

PS – What high intensity LED’s would you recommend for this. I have been looking at these http://www.ledtronics.com/ds/L200-0UR/ ( High-Flux SpiderLED Discretes
)and where would you recommend buying them from in the USA.

Thanks

Andre

 

Use the search button and search the word "brake". I just dug up a bunch of topics on this very subject a week or so ago for another person looking to make a motorcycle brakelight.

 

heres a few, there are more if you look

Luxeon Tail light. Any input?

LED's and Sequence Flasher mixed with some other functions?

flasher

LEDs + Motorcycle

LED Tail light Schem... correct?

 

Well the general consensus around here is to use a 4017 decade counter, however for something this simple you can use a nand schmidt gated oscillator: an RC for the flasher from output to one intput and gated by an RC off the trigger on the other input. Digikey or Mouser has this sort of stuff...I do not know about Jameco.

D.

 

Thanks Andy. Found a lot og good info.

Cheers

Andre