Here's The Plan

Thank you to everyone that voted and helped me choose between LED and halogen. The overwhelming response was that the halogen could not be beat. In one last attempt to give the LEDs another shot, I disassembled all of the surface mounted LEDs on one of the LED replacements and re-soldered them as one front facing board. You can see in the picture below that the overall brightness increased, but still cannot compare to the one halogen bulb two chambers over. There just is not enough light to fill the chamber the way the halogen bulb does. Halogen it is, or as one follower put it, "Halogen For The Win"!

KITT's Hybrid LED And Halogen Scanner

The H3 halogen replacement LEDs and capacitors I ordered for the scanner arrived yesterday. I decided to do a direct side comparison since I could not find where anyone online had done that. I replaced four of the eight bulbs with their LED equivalents and wired the capacitors inline to provide the proper fade out and trailing effect.

The LEDs ended up being disappointingly dim compared to the halogens. I also did not care for the the trailing effect in comparison to the halogens. There is just something artificial about it. Here is a video comparing the H3 halogen replacement LEDs versus halogens.

KITT's Halogen Scanner

I know it seems like ages ago that I promised a video of KITT's scanner, but for those that have been patiently waiting...the wait is over. This scanner looks fantastic, especially with the screen accurate scanner bar!

Before we jump to the video I wanted to share some observations about the halogen bulbs. They are insanely bright, equally as hot, and eat your battery for a afternoon snack. I had not given any thought to the heat these bulbs would generate. After just a few minutes with the scanner on, the bar is almost too hot to touch and definitely too hot to hold comfortably. It is so hot that it honestly has me concerned about safety while operating the scanner in the summer.

I searched online for others who may have had issues with heat or documented how hot these scanners get, but I could not find anything. I decided to take some temperature readings of the bar at five minute intervals while in use over a period of 15 minutes. I took these temperature readings with an infrared temperature gun in our heated garage. The temperature in the garage was 61°F with 24% humidity. Here are the results:

Scanner State	Temperature
Powered Off	60°F
Five minutes of runtime	167°F
Ten minutes of runtime	178°F
Fifteen minutes of runtime	189°F
Five minutes powered off	112°F
Ten minutes powered off	95°F
Fifteen minutes powered off	86°F

Happy Valentine's Day From Project: K.I.T.T.

Celebrating 200 Followers On Google+

Project: K.I.T.T.'s Google+ page just hit 200 followers today! Thanks to everyone for your continued interest and support!

If you have not had a chance to check out the Project: K.I.T.T. page on Google+ you really should. It's a great way to stay updated, leave comments, or even ask questions about the Project. It will even notify you of new blog posts and videos.

More Parts For KITT

Mark Scrivani of Mark's Custom Kits Inc. has changed his focus and is no longer going to be in the Knight Rider replica business. As a result, the large collection of Trans Am restoration parts he has amassed over the years is up for sale.

I ordered the following from Mark: Tan rear passenger roof trim, a lower dash trim panel without cutouts, a headlight switch, a New Old Stock (NOS) Glove box cover, and a new turn-signal, cruise stem, with wiper delay. The parts arrived on Monday.

Project: K.I.T.T - What's Been Going On

I dug out KITT's schematics from where they have been packed since we insulated the garage and hung them back on the garage wall. You know what that means... It is time for Project: K.I.T.T. to get serious again. No more anger, no more moping, and no more excuses.