Nightrider style light bar

it is almost impossible to find a night rider style bar. I found one but it uses red, green and blue lights and I was not playing with that, specially the red and blue. It wouldn't let me choose a single color either . I just wanted it to be white. I had to make my own. I tried to load a video but the size is over 20MB. I may posted to utube or something and link it if there is enough interest to see it. I used what I had available to me so I wish I had white LED and not the cool white but it will do for now. If the light breaks or something I will then get the right type of LEDs and do it again. I am super happy with how it looks so the color does not bother me that much.

let me know what you all think.

Oh yeah, i also installed the grill lights... I'm super happy with those too.

 

Nice!

 

Thank you.

 

Really nice job! I like it. Provide a few details about what you used and how you did the install for members that want to be inspired by your project.
As I am guessing you already know, using blue and red is illegal for anyone but LEO and some first responders in many areas

 

The NSV light bar is really popular with its "swipe" feature and is typically referred to as a "night rider" style bar. I put it on my vehicle recently and am really pleased with it. Really interested to see how you built yours!

 

3M sells a roll of clear red tape for busted tail lights, why not use that cut to length n height?

 

thank you. i will explain what i did below... I was not sure if anyone would have care about it. I am aware about the blue and red lights and that is the reason I just wanted it to be white.

I LOVE the NSV light but thats 2 car payments for a light and I just cant justify it myself. one day though.

I am not sure what you mean. I dont want my light to be red so I am not sure what you meant.

 

Good job.

 

for those interested..this is what I did.

I purchased

$34 iJDMTOY 20" RGB LED Knight Rider Scanner Light Bar 48-LED Strip for Car Interior Exterior Decoration Lighting

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008BVUCS0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8 this light from Amazon. It is awesome but once i received it and after reaching out to their customer service it was established the light did not have the feature I wanted.

You can choose a single color for some of the flashing patterns programed on the light but other patterns just go thru all the colors RGB lights can generate. For the "night rider" pattern specifically, it goes thru all the colors, including red and blue.

The light has about 30 flashing patterns, it lists 130 on the description but i think that is maybe the same pattern in different colors so they may count that as another "pattern" and there is no way to go back on the patterns so if you like pattern 13 and you change, you have to cycle thru all the patterns all the way back to pattern 13 so i didnt want to risk to ever turn the light and happen to flash red and blue. ESPECIALLY there are some really police like flashing patterns.

anyways....

all i did was take the controller and connect it to a strip of RGBWW LED i had laying around. you can cut the strip at every 6 LED and use them independently. Instead of cutting them all the way thru, I only cut the contact for the White LED therefore making it into sections i could control with the outputs of the controller on the light i had bought. I am not sure if I am making it clear so please let me know if I should break it down some more or even provide pictures.

If i was to do it again, I would purchase a strip of only white LED that maybe are packed closer together. Being that i used a RGBWW strip, the strip has a White LED then and RGB so it goes W RGB W RGB W RGB W RGB..... but since i am only using the white, there is an unused LED in between every white LED. only issue is that most white LED Strips are also spaced out far apart. but you cant really see much of a gap so is not bad. if i was to do it again, i wil focus on doing it so it is the bright white and not the cool white but i am happy with it.

i then used a piece of c channel used for closets as a backing to make it rigid and then stuffed it in a piece of clear hose that i then sealed with clear silicone on both ends in hopes to make it waterproof. so that will be the only weak point of the build and again, if i breaks, i will then use the bright white LEDs. This time around i just wanted to see how it looked and if it worked well and it does.

all in all i spent:

32.00 for the light
4.00 for the c-channel
2.00 for the clear hose it was about .45c per foot and i bought 4 feet.

everything else I had. You can still get it done for under $100 if you had to buy the RGBWW strip, wire, terminals, protector sleeve, tape....

let me know if anyone needs more details. I can take some more pictures and break it down a little more if necessary. Glad to help.

 

Great job!
I’d love to see a YouTube video about the fabrication and to be able to see it in operation. Post up a link please.

 

Good idea and clean.