Make sure you get this to work before you move on to the next step. Also, make sure you remove the LED and the resistor before you continue.

This gadget lets you use any IR remote-control to control your lamp, garden lights, heater oven, garage door, or anything else.

Knight RiderLED scanner Light

If you followed my steps above, you know that your oscillator circuit is working. So something must be wrong with the counter circuit or in the connection from the oscillator to the counter. Start by checking that the connection between them is correct.

This is the part that creates the pulses for the counter input. The speed of the oscillator (i.e. how many pulses it has per second) determines how fast the light will run back and forth.

Knight RiderLED light scanner Bar Red

Now that you know your oscillator is working, you can connect the remaining parts. Connect it as shown in the Knight Rider light bar circuit diagram shown above.

Knight rider lightsprice

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It’s a really fun circuit to build. I once built a larger version of this for the inside of a party bus I was a part of. Unfortunately, I broke it the first day because I increased the voltage too much, but that’s another story.

You can build this circuit if you’re a total beginner, but of course, it’s a bit easier if you have already built a few circuits before.

If no LEDs are lighting up, there’s a big chance that you’ve connected your LEDs in the wrong direction or that you are using the wrong value for the resistors. Check the direction of your LEDs and check that the resistors are 100 Ohm.

Once the circuit is soldered, it’s a little bit harder to make changes if you messed something up. (But not too hard though, you can always desolder).

Start by connecting the oscillator part. Connect it at the top of your breadboard so that you’ll have lots of space to connect the rest of the circuit below.

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Knight Riderlight Bar original

I usually like to build the circuit on a breadboard first. Just to make sure I understand it and am able to build it before soldering it onto a prototyping board.

This gadget lets you use any IR remote-control to control your lamp, garden lights, heater oven, garage door, or anything else.

Then test the 555 timer oscillator by connecting an LED in series with a resistor on the output. With the values chosen above, your LED should blink about 3 times per second.

The counter sets one of its 10 outputs high depending on where in the counting sequence it is. So if it’s at 0, output 0 will be high. If it’s at 5, output 5 will be high. And if we have an LED connected to the output, the LED will light up.

Knight Riderscanner light with sound

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There are only 6 LEDs, but 10 counter outputs. Each of the LEDs on the two sides connect to output 0 and output 9 as shown in the Knight Rider circuit diagram above.

The Knight Rider light bar circuit creates a running light similar to the light bar on the car from the television show Knight Rider.

Only one LED should light up at a time. If more LEDs light up at the same time, you must have a faulty connection from the outputs of the counter to the LEDs. Inspect the ones that light up at the same time carefully to find the error.