if there's space around the outer edge, see if you can find a rubber gasket the size of the outer edge and sandwich it in between the plexi sheets. room for the bulbs and weather proof to boot.

 

Yeah I drilled the holes already and I think I'm satisfied. The real test will be when I have the leds placed in the circle and illuminated. But to test brightness I can't simply string 6 leds together in series right? I would need a resistor? Because in series the voltage drop on each resistor would be 2v (given equal resistance in each led) but the Max current is 20 mA right? So v=ir...12=(.02)r. So r= 600ohms? Am I being stupid? I can test my leds tonight to see how much resistance there is but we both know its not 600 ohms

 

Nvm I'm being stupid. I need to find the equivalent resistance of 6 of them in series and go from there

 

Okay so by the end of today I'll have the plex cut and DONE. Finally.

So its wiring time.

1. The resistors they sell at superbrightleds.com only come in 470 and 560 ohms (closest to 500). Should I get a 470 ohm and 22 ohm for each LED (resistors would be in series obviously)?

2. What else do I need to get?

 

Regener, good call on the o rings. I picked some up tonight.

I have the housings pretty much where I want them. Now that I found o rings I'll be cutting two cover pieces.

For the electronics, I found that radioshack has 1/4 w rated 470 ohm resistors as well as 10 ohm resistors. So I'll just have to string those together in series for each led. Looks like my soldiering skills will get a LOT better in the next few days haha

 

NO...

is radio-shacks selection really that poor?

also keep in mind your bike will run 12-15v probably depending on rpm, load, what rectifier.



check out
digikey.com
mouser.com

EDIT,
sounds like you want to do a variance on a knight rider circuit,

google 555 knight rider

 

Radioshack had a bunch of resistors but you can't really expect them to have every single thing, can you? The closest they had were 470 ohms and 560 ohms.

I'll go ahead and check those sites.

I looked at the 555 knight rider and they had some cool things, but I didn't see my sequence in there.

What I want mine to do is:

left devil eye-Start at 12 oclock and light up counter-clockwise once I hit the brakes. Once the full circle is lit it will stay that way until I release. (would that mean once I release the brakes it will "un-illuminate" (I know its not a word) clockwise?)

Right devil eye-Start at 12 oclock and light up clockwise once I hit the brakes. Once the full circle is lit it will stay that way until I release.

If this isn't possible then We could either come up with something else cool (as long as you guys know how to do it since its been longer than I thought since I took electronics) Or I'll just have plain boring old led brake lights

 

mouser.com has 500 ohm, 1/4 watt resistors (through hole) for 34 cents a piece when I buy 50. I'll probably go ahead and order some tomorrow morning. I'll need 32 for these brake lights. I'm also doing the stupid f4i air duct led thing because I'll be getting hotbodies flush mounts in the future so I'll need resistors for that too.

 

gave this a little thought, you could take the 555 circuit, and a decade counter(ex 4017), then connect each output of the counter to a D flip flop, if you store the value in the flip flop, you can get your ring to stay turn on. the output of each D flip flop would correspond to an LED.

couple issues i have not given thought to
-how to stop
-how to reset flip flops after/before is it neccesary.
-what if any flip flops can drive enough current/ operate/handle 14 volts.
....tbd

ps you could make a 500ohm resistor from 2 1k in parallell. ie eq. = x *y /(x + y)

to find your resistor value i assume you took (14v -2v(left) -2v(right)) / 20mA = 500ohms, the 560s may be a better value to use so you dont overheat the LEDS- best way to verify this is to take a dmm measure it and verify it works as expected.

I assume you are going to breadboard this out before you solder

pick your resistor values from these tables
http://eet.etec.wwu.edu/etec271/StdRValues.pdf
Id personally use 1% resistors where available.

 

shipping will kill you, wait to order

also if you have an .edu email, you should be able to get a student version of autocad