LED Cylon Scooter

2022-04-15 | By bekathwia

License: Attribution Non-commercial

It was easy to add a chasing LED animation to the grille of my 80s Honda Elite scooter. Now it looks like something out of Knight Rider or Battlestar Galactica.

Supplies for this project:

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circuit diagram

The strip is adhered to the inside of the grille using silicone adhesive, and the Trinket's power and ground connections are routed to the scooters power. There's a toggle switch on the power wire, mounted under the dashboard to easily turn the system on and off.

inside the finished grille

I used Phil B.'s rock-solid larson scanner code for Arduino, adjusting the number of pixels to match my strip:

Copy Code

// Larson Scanner by Phil Burgess: 
// https://learn.adafruit.com/larson-scanner-shades?view=all

#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>

#define N_LEDS 31
#define PIN     4

Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(N_LEDS, PIN, NEO_GRBW + NEO_KHZ800);

void setup() {
  strip.begin();
}

int pos = 0, dir = 1; // Position, direction of "eye"

void loop() {
  int j;

  // Draw 5 pixels centered on pos.  setPixelColor() will clip any
  // pixels off the ends of the strip, we don't need to watch for that.
  strip.setPixelColor(pos - 2, 0x100000); // Dark red
  strip.setPixelColor(pos - 1, 0x800000); // Medium red
  strip.setPixelColor(pos    , 0xFF3000); // Center pixel is brightest
  strip.setPixelColor(pos + 1, 0x800000); // Medium red
  strip.setPixelColor(pos + 2, 0x100000); // Dark red

  strip.show();
  delay(30);

  // Rather than being sneaky and erasing just the tail pixel,
  // it's easier to erase it all and draw a new one next time.
  for(j=-2; j<= 2; j++) strip.setPixelColor(pos+j, 0);

  // Bounce off ends of strip
  pos += dir;
  if(pos < 0) {
    pos = 1;
    dir = -dir;
  } else if(pos >= strip.numPixels()) {
    pos = strip.numPixels() - 2;
    dir = -dir;
  }
}