Started in 2000, closed down in 2010.
How did we start?
A fan of Knight rider from a young age, as many of us were. I brought an american car when in 1996, mainly liked it just because of the shape. Got it home and someone mentioned it was the same shape as Knight Rider, a 3rd Gen Firebird. After many years I made a light to go between the hood and the bumper, just to be a little different. Took the car to many shows, many people showed interest in wanting one too
So that sparked the idea of making many more. Different shapes for different cars.
How did the product evolve?
The first prototype had a control board in a box and ribbon cables running to each of the LED's. It was fine for proving proof of concept. In the box was an Atmel micro controller feeding shift registers and the outputs of the shift registers were connected to registers and then a ribbon cable to the 64 LED's. The fading trail effect was all in software be refreshing the LED display very fast. The LEDs were on for different duration's, around 16 brightness levels were on this first design were achieved.
The shape of the Firebird was a little of an unique shape. The light was made from 6mm polycarbonate cut and drilled for the shape. for other models a generic curve of 48LED or 64LED's long were made.
We also made mini 8 LED ones for model cars, and 16 LED ones for for comuter cases.