There are only five countries where road traffic is on the "right" correct side of the road.
Thailand is one of them.

The historical reasons for driving on the left side are of financal nature: Modifying the public buses takes too much money.

 

Our buses are made here. They drive on the "right" side of the road and pickup passengers on the "right" side of the road.
We don't have any UK double-deck backwards buses here.
Trains and subways are also made here. I think people enter the trains on the "wrong" side but enter the subways on the "right" side.

I think Boeing airplanes have passengers enter on the "wrong" side.
I don't remember Airbus planes.

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Uncle $crooge

 

Hi audiguru,

every airline has their passengers enter the plane on the "wrong side. It's getting time to change that!

 

Someone previously posted a map of countries that drive on the left, it was surprising how big a percentage does!.

The reason goes back MUCH further than public buses, it's not a financial reason. No one has still explained why other countries drive on the right though?.

__________________
PIC programmer software, and PIC Tutorials at:
http://www.winpicprog.co.uk

 

Many more people are right-handed. They can shift gears easier with their right hand, I guess.

Which side of a horse-drawn carriage did the driver sit on?
The pics I found have the driver sitting exactly in the middle!

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Uncle $crooge

 

stay on topic guys. im sure you can go in depth about left hand and ride side driving on another tread.

 

Is your goal simply to have 2 levels of brighness? To glow at half power when the headlights are on and go to max brighness when you brake? Is a side light just like a parking light, or running light? Do you need to incorperate turn signals too, or are they seperate?

You say you have hacked a existing LED tail light modual with built in resisitors. I assume then, with the built in resistors you can hook it up to your cars battery and it will light at full brighness and not burn out? Is this correct?

The most popular way to dim LEDs is with PWM. (search here or google to learn more about it)
If the lights work like I think they do, I don't see why you couldn't use somthing like a 555 timer to PWM the leds when power is applied to the wire for the side lights, and then just hook the brake light wire directly to the moduals and override the PWM side when the brake is applied.
You could also use a resistor insted of the PWM and the 555, but it would waste power.

Maybe someone else has a better idea too

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Resistors already in place? Strings of 3 and 4 LEDs? Sounds like you're trying to build something that's nothing like the schematic you posted.

 

google for tail brake light led circuits

Here is one of 177,000 hits on the search.

http://www.redcircuits.com/Page85.htm like your with NPNs.

 

 

Hi Nigel,

when Sweden changed from LH traffic to RH traffic GB was also asked to change to have european countries with the same traffic (rules). The argument for refusal however was just the reason as already posted. The problem is not the side of the road, it is the side of the steering wheel.

You will notice that cars moving in GB with the steering wheel on the left side tend to cause a traffic jam, just because the driver can't look ahead very well for overtaking. The same applies if english cars move in Germany or elsewhere in Europe.

Regards

Hans


P.S. A perfect solution would be to have the driver and the steering wheel in the middle of the car - the driver being protected from side impact by two good looking girls.

 

How can a guy drive when he is in between two good looking girls?

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Uncle $crooge

 

There are 177,000 sites, the one I sent a link for, I thought, had NPN transistors, and yours had PNPs. So it is not the same circuit, but probably is the same website as in was in the first three (all I bother to look at as well). And if it was PNPs in mine, my mistake. We all make them.

I figure most people have more NPNs and it might help you out. Sorry to offend you, it will not happen again as I will leave your thread to you.

Looks like it turned into off-topic anyway. At least I tried to help.

 

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~antoon/gadgets/555/555.html
Here is a site about 555 timers. About halfway down it shows how to wire one for asable operaton. That is the way you would use it for PWM. Its all expained on the website, but you adjust the resitor and capacitor values to change the frequency and duty cycle, that will determin how bright the LED looks to the human eye.

You won't be able to drive the LED moduals directly from the 555, as they can't supply much current (200mA max) so you will need to use a transistor also.

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Hi TuscanT,

back to the original thread:

This circuit works with PWM. (Frequency ~ 1.8KHz) If the brake pedal is not depressed (S1 open) the duty cycle is 50%. You can increase it by changing the value of R5 to a smaller value if the LEDs are too dim.

If S1 is closed the duty cycle is 100%, meaning a connected frequency counter doesn't "see" any frequency because of supershort off-cycles.

Using a BUZ11 would be good enough for a big cluster of LEDs. Be good and give it a heat sink too.

Calculate the current limiting resistors for a supply of 14.4V, which the car electric system normally has (13.8 - 14.4V) if the generator is working. There will be a very small change in brightness used just on battery power.

Hope that helps you to complete your project.