How to make LED Lights flash to music in a car.

This Instructable will show you how to make a LED Controller that can be directly wired to a car sub woofer amplifier or standard speaker output. It is constructed entirely of recycled parts and may cost you nothing.

I chose to make this Instructable as I was unable to find a device similar to this available for purchase

A Video of it in action is attached as it takes too long to convert. You probably need Quicktime or VLC.

The controller uses a 12V SLA battery and a transistor to control when the lights should be active by monitoring the speaker output. It works best when wired to a subwoofer as it only activates the lights when a beat is present.

You will need:

A box to put it in (I used an old Pioneer home theater speaker)
A Heavy Duty Transistor( The transistor I used was a ST W14NC50 from an old Compaq power supply unit)
Wire
A soldering iron
A switch (optional)
3 Speaker input ports(don't know what their actually called)
A 12 Battery. (Make sure the voltage isn't to high over 12V as you may blow the LED's)

Step 1 Constructing and soldering the circuit

Construct and solder the circuit using the transistor you have sourced. It is best if the transistor is attached to a heatsink in order to prevent it from overheating and failing.

Comments

[emotec]

Here is a simple addition to your circuit to provide voltage regulation.

emotec

[emotec]

F.Y.I. --- good quaility and reasonably fast video conversion program free here:
http://download.cnet.com/FormatFactory/3000-2194_4-10968547.html?tag=mncol;1 Using this only took about 40 secs to make your video into .avi format that will play on windows media player. I have attached the result to this comment so it's ready for other readers to view. You have my permision to cut it from my comment and add it to your instructable if you like!!Also, I agree that you should add a voltage regulation curcuit to your design between your battery negitive and your transister to prevent an overload to your leds and burning them out prematurely. Otherwise,nice able! Happy brainstroming!

Quote of the day--"Pirates are always cooler than Ninjas"

G'day mates
Emotec

[fastcar123]

you sould put in some sort of voltage regulator. normally in a car the alternator will push the overall voltage as high 15 vols which could result in blown LEDs. of course a resistor works just as well or even a relay connected to the REM the has a resistor iat the end of it. I may be able to draw u a schematic but honestly im just thinking out loud here.

anyway great instructible! I will definatly look into building this for my soon-to-be sub system for my car

[alexmang]

Thanks for that, I forgot about the varying voltage. Was also thinking that you could just use an external battery such as a small SLA 12v and you would not have to rely on cars varying voltage,

[fastcar123]

True. What you could do as well is just get like a 12v battery charger and use that for the power source. I would think that would have a voltage regulator as well