I am a volunteer firefighter. After looking at all of the expensive options for POV lights, I decided I wanted to make my own custom emergency light for my vehicle. This gave me the option to have RGB lights for all colors without the HIGH cost!
The light is a single 60 pixel, 1 meter strip of NeoPixels controlled by an Adafruit Feather HUZZAH ESP8266 (All I had available at the time). The code should be simple enough to run on any microcontroller with very little changes.
Currently I have set 7 flash patterns -
- Triple Flash - Blue
- 2-color WigWag - Blue/White
- Single-color WigWag - Blue
- Right Traffic Advisor - Amber
- Left Traffic Advisor - Amber
- Center-Out Traffic Advisor - Amber
- WigWag - Amber
I am now currently working on ideas on how to enclose and mount the light in the vehicle and how I want to wire power for it.
| ID | Part name | Details | Quantity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5V | 5V+ In | Power supply input | 1 |
| C1 | Capacitor Polarized | 1000uf-63V | 1 |
| D1 | Zener Diode | 1N4001 | 1 |
| R1 | Resistor | 330Ω | 1 |
| S1 | SPST Switch | Power switch ON/OFF | 1 |
| S2 | SPST Mom. Switch | Momentary switch | 1 |
| P1 | Adafruit Feather HUZZAH (ESP8266) | 1 | |
| P2 | NeoPixels | Neopixel Strip -- Black (30/m) | 1 |
Assemble the circuit following the layout and schematic attached to the sketch.
IMPORTANT: To reduce NeoPixel burnout risk, add 1000 uF capacitor across pixel power leads, add 300 - 500 Ohm resistor on first pixel's data input and minimize distance between Arduino and first pixel. Avoid connecting on a live circuit...if you must, connect GND first.
Upload the code main.ino to your board.
My code - Public Domain
The libraries and pre-built code - Whatever license they are released under.