For those who don’t know, I volunteered as a firefighter and EMT. In the spring of 2005 I started a process of building a blue light for my personal vehicle. The light is used to ask other vehicles to yield for quicker response to the fire station in the event of an emergency.
The light must meet some specific requirements to be legal. Since I volunteer in Pennsylvania I followed the PA code, available here
Basically the light must be mounted on the roof, be blue, either flash at a certain rate or be on long enough for the light to come to full brightness. The light must be controlled by a switch inside the vehicle and that switch must be lit when on. The blue light must be visible from 360 degrees around the vehicle.
The project went through many stages, and the scope and design of the project changed a few times. I hope to document it here so that anyone else who wishes to build something like this can get some ideas.
