Hi boolagoosh, kinjalp, bogdanfirst, herbymcduff,
Sarac, and any others looking in,
Apparently 'Halfords', a popular car-spares shop
sell ready made units to do just this effect.
This would probalbly be cheaper than buying all
the bits, and a case, and spending the time to
build one yourself,
But projects like this are usually taken on where
the person wants to make it themselves, people
are usually aware that ready made items are
available.
Building something from discrete components is a
far cry from programming nested loops into some
programmable chip, that may not be what he wants.
As to the reverse effect,
it is assumed that they will all go out, wherever
they are in their sequence, opon release of the
brake pedal. That seems logical to me.
Sarac is correct, the circuit as drawn, is for
lighting the LEDs in the manner described, they would
all go out together.
Also as mentioned, the circuit is only a skeleton,
only a suggestion, it may be found that high to med
value resistors need to be put between the base-
emitter junction of the outputs, to keep them shut
when not being driven, if the leakage from the drivers
is a bit high.
And the cap doesnt want to be too big, cos it has to
empty fairly quickly when the supply goes off, it
would be feeding the LEDs so it would empty quickly
anyway, i mention it because there are capacitors
available which are such massive values that using
a very large value could actually make a visible
delay between releasing the brake, and the lights
going out. Unlikely, but best mentioned.
For someone wanting to 'learn as they go' such a
project is fairly good, easy to fault-find, no
RF, no dificult to understand parts, moderately
easy to understand, and gives a visible result to
satisfy the constructor.
John