My LEDs in the headliner

This is one of my more involved projects, I came up with the idea while trying to think up a unique project to do to my car. This project was fun and provided a valuable learning experience to the design  process.

First I had to design my own circuit to have the LEDs light up in different patterns to the music. This circuit uses a total of 8 8-bit shift registers with another 8 8-bit Darlington transistor arrays connected to the output of the shift registers. By driving the clocks and inputs to the shift registers, I am able to control each LED.

The picture to the left shows the prototype of this circuit. (The LEDs are the white circles).

Once I was able to get the prototype circuit working, I then installed the LEDs in the roof. I had to wire each LED up separately to be able to control them with my circuit.

After connecting and organizing 124 wires, the headliner was reinstalled in the car. The LEDs are slightly noticeable during the day.

After I finished with the headliner, I needed to convert my prototype circuit so that I could connect the 124 wires from the LEDs. Using approximately 20 ft of network cable, I was able to make all of the necessary connections.

I proceeded to test the circuit at reduced power to ensure all of the LEDs were working. There were a few connection problems but those were taken care of without any trouble.

I then created some printed circuit boards to finish up the project. I was still soldering the components when this picture was taken.

Only thing that was left is to power it up. It was hard to get a decent picture of the LEDs. I had to add a little fog to get a good picture of it.