A bunch of college guys sitting around one day. A bunch of firefighters and EMTs. A bunch of engineers. That was us.

We didn’t really know what we were getting into at the time, but we knew we could make something really cool. One of us had found some really cheap LEDs on ebay. A blue LED lightbar can cost well over $500. 200 LEDs for around $25 on ebay? With those we could make a lightbar for a fraction of the cost of a new bar.

It was very possible. We could split up the LEDs into four segments so that we met the 360 degree requirement. The LEDs would come on to full brightness very quickly, but we could make the circuitry follow the other flash requirements just to be sure. Mounting it would be a challenge for later if we got it to work, and switching it inside the vehicle was easy. This really seemed possible, and it was, it just ended up taking a lot longer than expected.

So we tried to put our combined Electrical Engineering knowledge to work to find a way to drive some cool flash patterns through the LEDs.

Almost a full year and a half after we got the idea, I finally finished my bar. It was a long, frustrating, and always changing process, but the end result is awesome. Read on to learn more about the design, implementation, and finished product, of my custom built blue lightbar.