Bought a McCain LED Traffic light at a Garage Sale for my Gameroom… it has all the wiring (ie., one common and one wire to each of the (3) lights). I’d like to have the lights go on separately for a few seconds then repeat the sequence. Mind you, I’m NOT an electrician, but can follow directions.
Thinking I need some sort of controller or gadget with circuitry? Is there an economical way of wiring this up? I do not want all the colors to be “on” at the same time.
Thanks in Advance
Yep, you’ll need some sort of controller. I don’t know of anything off the shelf that you could buy that would be cost effective for something you bought at a garage sale. A custom made control circuit would be fairly simple, but I don’t think you have the skills required to make one.
There’s a simple circuit here, for example:
You’d also have to know if the LEDs in your traffic light have the voltage dropping resistors built in or if they are just LEDs.
ETA: Is this a small toy thing or is it a real full sized traffic light?
Wait for the OP for confirmation, but McCain is a true traffic control equipment manufacturer. Perhaps they also make toy models, but it seems unlikely.
For a low-voltage toy, another approach would be to hook a small electric motor to a metallic can. Have four wires “brush” the rotating can: one that is the electric supply and one to each of the three lights. Use electrical tape in the right places on the can to make the lights go on and off in the proper pattern.
You might also check your local hobby shop for something similar from a model train set that you could modify.
Ref the post above …
In days of yore (the '70s) it was common to use a simple rotary switch spun by an electric motor to switch power to lights in sequence. All those chasing white lights on movie marquees and other signs worked this way. You’d be switching control power to a contactor for each light set, not switching the actual load, but the concept is the same.
Switch life was not great under continuous use, maybe a year or two before a contact wore out. But that’d be plenty good for a home-brew system built today which is switching the small loads of an LED traffic lamp.
I’ve seen controllers like this used for different strings of Christmas tree lights. A controller box, with several receptacles where you plugged in the different lights. Possibly you could use one of them.