Well I'm not even sure if I'd need an Arduino, but figured someone in here could maybe give me an idea/direction to go. Basically what i want to do it have a flood light drop down from behind my bumper in my truck whenever the reverse lights come on. Basically i just don't want to see the light until i put the truck in reverse. The floodlight i have is only about 4x3x4 inches or so, and pretty light. It would need to drop about 3-4" or so. I have looked around and haven't really found anything specific to what i want to do, and I'm not exactly sure how to word my searches. What would be the best way to do this? Should i use a dc motor/stepper motor to swing/pivot the light down, or use a pulley system of some sort, or some sort of actuator/cylinder to just drop it straight down? Also, would any of these be able to use no electricity while the light is held up? I don't really want to draw a current from the batteries constantly.
Here is a video of the basic idea, but he didn't give any instructions or what he used to do it. If i'm not mistaken he bought the setup for $550.. seems a little excessive to me..
All you really need are some motors and relays wired to the reversing switch.
However, it's not very sociable in my opinion. I'd not be too pleased if you were reversing on a road and I was coming towards you and into two large spotlights. You'd look like an oncoming vehicle with headlights on. I'm sure reversing lights are limited in their size for this reason.
Right, how would i keep the motor from continuously spinning while in reverse? I.e, how do i limit it's travel? Also, the lights i have are not that bright. I replaced my reverse lights with led's, because i hate the yellow color of halogen, so my reverse light output isn't that much. And I'm tired of not being able to see anything when i backup.
A relay that is operated by the reversing switch to power the motor. A microswitch at the stent of travel to break the circuit and stop the motor.
You'd probably need to use some multi contact relays and do some cross wiring to control the stop/start and forward/reverse for dropping them and raiding them.
You could use an MCU to do it too. Probably just a couple of servos or stepper motors and program the exent of travel in software. You'd probably only need a couple of pins so maybe something like an ATTiny would work.
If it's light enough, you might even get away with using a solenoid wired in parallel with the reversing lights. If weight is an issue, the thing that drops down could be a mirror rather than the whole lamp. A lamp at ankle level doesn't seem particularly useful, though.
