Arduino...the right choice? (shift light)

[demond0d5]

ok to start off with, I know absolutely nothing about programming stuff...everything I will be doing will be researched and youtube

what I am trying to do is create a shift light that increases the bulb/light/lumen/brightness (pick a word) intensity as the rpm increases.

I have seen people use arduino (not sure what any of it is beyond that name keeps showing up) to create sequential shift lights (1 light, then 2, then 3, etc. depending on rpm level) but I cannot find anywhere that has a premade unit or someone that has made a steady increase.



so far the only idea I have other than a single progressive bulb is
1) use a sequential that has several lights and put all the lights next to each other, the lowest rpm bulb/led being tinted heavily and bulb tint progressively decreasing as the rpm's climb . example: 5 lights, 1st at 3000, 2nd at 3500, 3rd at 4000, etc...
I think that would give a similar result to what im looking for except it will obviously be less smooth than one bulb changing intensity.




I found a string of youtube videos talking about "arduino" earlier but have not had a chance to look at them yet. I will continue to look around but wanted to see if anyone has had any experience in this area before...thanks for any constructive input y'all may have!!!

[4g63lover]

I dont understand what you are trying to accomplish. Are you five-speed? What is the shift light for?

I'm not knocking on the idea, its your ride so do you, I just dont know what the purpose behind it is.

[demond0d5]

no worries bro, but yes I am 5-speed.
I honestly have no reason to do it other than I think its cool and because it would be unique.

here is my inspiration, skip to about 30 sec:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGr74GoBlbw



basically it's a shift light, just not a on/off one...its variable, sometimes called a "LED TACHO"

[Black8GV6]

"LED TACHO"

now I'm hungry for tacos

[demond0d5]

Basically I'm trying to figure out if there is already a shift light that increases intensity rather than just turning on

Or

If anyone is familiar with arduino and could assist with something like that...from what I can gather you have to create a program/code to use the thing and I have no experience in that area


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[oakrdrs187]

Looks like that is stock, manufacturers can do alot of shit. Like that without using voltage values, take CAN BUS for example.

Now my critique, that's pretty cool I guess. And its wheels are fugly, the decal is stupid, what was up with the DRL's?! And to top it off the tool with the need to hit 200mph fucked up 3rd to 4th.

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[demond0d5]

Yes it is an oe option...that's why I said I am attempting to make something similar

Haha in the end I still think the viper is an "ok" car...not my fav but anyway, back to the topic at hand.....


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[wetamup2k3g]

what was up with the DRL's?!

LED's often use PWM to operate; if the frequency they use doesn't sync with the FPS of the camera, the LED's will appear to flicker. To the naked eye though, they look fine.

[demond0d5]

ok so I've found some code/programming stuff from people that have done more than what im looking for so I know its possible...found one that had like 6 LEDs and would fade the first three, then do stages for the last 3, and have them all flash at rev limit...but since I really don't know anything about the programming side of stuff I still cant figure out how to get it to read the input signal or tell it which light does what...

discovered a crap tone of walkthroughs on the arduino website I will be sifting through when I have time in the next few weeks...if anyone has any advice feel free!

[oddball]

Quick tutorial on the basics:
Arduino is a modern programmable controller of things. The reason it's so famous is because there's a huge open source community of devs who have written code for certain processes (the code has a simplified syntax for ease of programing), and because different arduinos have different ports and they're all relatively inexpensive. Some basic things like reading a signal and turning on corresponding lights certainly has code in the world somewhere, the problem solving will come with interpreting the input signal. YouTube videos and Arduino forums are a good place to start to find some start code/suggestions.

As far as the shift light goes... Simple is better, the hardware cost and programming complexity to do anything more than LEDs will prob be a turn off if you really want the light. If you're in this for the building experience, go all out. And please do post whatever your may find here, I got a custom taillight project comin up in the next few months that I'm sure will have concurrent themes as your project. There's not many custom electronics threads on the site, so this will be a welcome addition.

[demond0d5]

Thanks oddball! Now I just have to learn how to code in order to make it work :/

This is obviously a very crude first mockup but here is a general idea...use your imagination a bit




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[demond0d5]

Give y'all a general idea of what's going on:


Need to work over the diamonds again, they are pretty ugly here...but general idea


Also got these yesterday to incorporate:





Hopefully will have something decent by the end of the weekend. Been talking with another guy on here who may have a hookup for getting it made as a solid piece but still working on the final design


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[demond0d5]

Got the new LEDs in place:

Gotta move a little to get the needle to light and the wire shadow around the 70mph away but otherwise that's about it...

Will need to get something mocked up for the actual shift light part but here is the guys of it as is (stuff stuck above is the innards of a shift light that I got used and couldn't make work for some reason)



***EDIT***
the temp gauge needle is so high because I just stuck it on there...didn't try to get it in the exact spot. also explains the idle at 1300

[demond0d5]

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[oddball]

That's pretty solid looking for a first mockup. Where'd you get those LED arrays from? And does your hookup make custom arranged arrays?

[demond0d5]

eBay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251603606582...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

so...yeah you can find pretty much anything you can think of on eBay if you're willing to sift through all the crap first ^.^ just a matter of figuring out what people call it...if you're looking for these try calling them "disk" I got a few specific hits on that


oh and thanks BTW...just ordered a little $20 shift light off eBay as well so I should be able to hook it up and see if I can get something basic for it. now that I know how everything is gonna go together we can start trying to get a 1-piece fabricated =D

[demond0d5]

shift light came in a while back, got it all torn apart and wired everything up...I was a dummy and forgot to check the voltage out of the shiftlight before soldering everything up and of course...it doesn't put out a high enough voltage to power the light trio

now I am working on finding a relay or relay/transistor combo that will allow me to use the shiftlight to power the relay coil and use the relay to get bat voltage to the lights...