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LED Police strobes

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moody07747

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Well everything knows i put all kinds of lights all over my bike in the summer

this time i want to try some red/blue flashers like on those cop cars

at this link...

https://www.autodirectsave.com/LED_Police_Light_Strobe.asp

...item 86652 shows what i want but i think i need to change it some

i want the red to blink 2se fast, then a pause, then the blue blink 2se fast...and repeat

I want to use some high output LEDs and run it on a 12V rechargable system.

Any ideas on where to start for all this?
 
microcontroller and some darlingtons or mosfets

microcontroller will let you custom write whatever kind of flashing sequence you want, without having to figure out different odd logic chips, timer chips, and other relics of the analog old school. sure there's a bit of a learning curve, you need to learn assembler for your chip (pic or arm or whatever), but once you do, the sky is the limit for different led light shows.

beefy transistors either darlingtons or mosfets will let you switch the large loads of high power leds.. powering it from a 12v system is no problem, you can use resistors and/or lm317 to "burn off" the excess voltage, or use a led driver (google for "buckpuck")
 
You might be wise to check with your local authorities first to find out just how much trouble you can get in for putting flashing red and/or blue lights on your bike (motorcycle?). That is, assuming that your bike is not classified as an emergency vehicle. For some reason, the police tend lose their sense of humor about things like that.
JB
 
Do a search here for led strobes. I posted one a while back that'll do what you want. In the circuit diagram I used leds with built in resistors, so there are none shown in the drawing...
like jbeng said you better check about legality first..
 
Yeah you put that on a bike and it's basically impersonating a police officer. Lawful people stop for these lights. It's trouble even if you're operating off a public roadway, such as a bicycle path.
 
justDIY said:
so many people here worry about the laws ... is everyone a lawyer? can't we just work on the electronic portion, and leave it up the OP to observe applicable laws for their area?

This is a public forum, do YOU! want to be legally liable for encouraging someone to break the law?.
 
Nigel Goodwin said:
This is a public forum, do YOU! want to be legally liable for encouraging someone to break the law?.

If you think you're going to get in some sort of trouble for helping another with a lighting effects project, then you're welcome not to participate... but all the legal eagles out there rather than not participate, they post all this nonsense debating the legality of things, none of it helps with the original request.

as a public forum, I guess that means this forum is partly about electronics discussion and mostly about legal debate?

I suppose there's a chance some cavalier prosecutor out there might some day stumble across a posting of mine, and somehow draw the conclusion that I assisted someone breaking some law, but then again, I could get hit by lightning, I could win the lottery, I could drop dead from an undiagnosed brain aneurism - the world is full of possibilities, and there are plenty of places to discuss them - but is an electronics forum the proper place for legal debates?
 
justDIY said:
as a public forum, I guess that means this forum is partly about electronics discussion and mostly about legal debate?

If that's your opinion you are of course entitled to it! (but perhaps you might try counting the small percentage of troublesome threads?) - if you want to open your own forums and be responsible for what anyone posts there you are free to do so.

However, as a moderator I consider part of my responsibilities to be protecting the owner and administrator (and for that matter users) of the site from potential legal problems - as a user I presume you would like to see the forums continue?, legal action against the owner would soon close it.

I have already been rung at home and asked to remove an old illegal post from these forums, the fact that the post predated me as a moderator (or even a member!) made no difference. In the event I agreed that the post shouldn't have been made, and I deleted it! - this avoided a potential problem.
 
Trifecta of foolish/illegal projects is in play.

Request for how to build an illegal MIRT to make traffic lights change for an emergency vehicle in 3... 2...

The bottom line is attempting to impersonate a police officer, which seems to be the goal/joke, is foolish, troublesome, and illegal. Police DO ride bikes so it could easily be interpreted as a real stop.

I mean, if you built a theme bike and wanted to just show off in a parade or with a bunch of friends at a parking lot, you'd be good, but we're pretty sure you've already declared this is for nefarious purposes.
 
justDIY said:
so many people here worry about the laws ... is everyone a lawyer? can't we just work on the electronic portion, and leave it up the OP to observe applicable laws for their area?
Laws are made for the good of society as a whole, they're not made just to piss you off. If you don't understand this, then I'm sorry for you, but please don't criticise others who do understand. Oh, and by the way, lawyers aren't responsible for ensuring people obey the laws, that's the job of the police.
"I wanna make a jammer!"
"I wanna make a stun-gun"
"I wanna impersonate a police vehicle"
You wanna grow up.
 
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