Lighting up our system


Electrical System / Wednesday, December 19th, 2018

As with any street legal car, there needs to be light indicators so that drivers are able to see what that car’s driver is doing. So for our car, while headlights are not necessary, stop and turn lights are required by the rules, so that our unfortunate driver doesn’t end up getting rammed for not doing hand signals well enough. 

Diagram 1

This first diagram shows an initial design based on ways that flashing lights have been done in other instances. In both designs, they are meant to alternatively flash the lights, as it saves power instead of having them flash at the same time, for the turn signals. The first diagram uses a coil to generate an electric field, which should flip the path of the the electrical system, and light up the other led, continuing in this fashion until the turn signal is turned off. Both diagrams use the same functionality for the stop system, where when the brake is depressed, a switch is closed, where a resistor with a higher resistance is opened, so that the lights will increase in brightness. 

Diagram 2

The second diagram uses transistors and gates to alternate the lights, and only shows its for one side, due to it being a reference for the prototypes to be made. 

The lights are going into the testing phase, to work out particular numbers for these various pieces, to help lower the amount of electricity usage, while remaining within the set parameters.

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