looking for information on automation

Hi Guys I am looking for some information on automating the LED lights on our new demo car.

This is a 2013 Dodge Charger Police Package fully loaded with RED / blue police lights made by our company 911signal usa.  We also added the Stealth Ghost graphics from Graphic Designs International.

The guys over at Team X at Extreme Performance in Palm City, Fl did the install on this and pulled over 2,000ft of 18 gauge wire in this vehicle.  Every single connection was soldered and heat shrink wrapped.

We will be taking this car this year to Fleet show Tx, Fleet show Nc, IACP, and Sema

We would like to automate these lights via an IPAD.  In a nutshell what we are looking to do is have an Ipad have a picture of the car with a diagram of the lights on it.  When a customer presses one of the lights in the picture on the IPAD it will turn that set of lights on and the car will talk to them through the cars sound system.  We will be upgrading the sound system to use all Hertz speakers.

So far thorugh our research we believe we need of course the IPAD and a relay board.  We are however missing a piece of equipment and not sure what to use.  I believe there is a piece missing between the IPAD and relay board.  Something that tells the relay board which relay to turn on.

I do beleive this is where the best professionals come in the industry so we are asking this question here.  I hope this is the correct forum.

I have provided a few pictures for you to view of the completed install.

There's 900mhz multi-chanel equipment available in the UK but it wouldn't work through an i-pad, what you're missing is a receiver, either Bluetooth or WiFi that would receive the i-pad signals. There's some tracking equipment that would perform some of these functions or maybe incorporate a Viper Smart start and use some of its aux functions.

Yes a receiver is what we are looking for.  Any ideas on a brand we could do some research on?

Thank you

How many outputs do you need? What kind of outputs do they need to be?Kevin Pierson

The relay board will have 16 12volt outputs on it.

We need something to trigger the relays independently.

So Ipad to Receiver?  To Trigger?  To Relay board.

It is the receiver part and the trigger part we are stuck on.  It may all be one in the same?

On the 12volt relay outputs around 5 amps each.

Forget the iPad and look at this, a complete solution, PROFLY16 16 channel R/C System. This is from RS Components in the UK which means there are probably US equivalents from either Mouser or Farnell.

Yeah no we are not looking to do the RF thing.  Looking to do the Ipad thing.

Thanks for the idea though

There are only a couple of ways for an IPad to communicate with the outside world. I am by no means an IPad expert, but I believe you have a cellular internet connection, a wifi internet connection, or bluetooth. If the IPad is always going to be close to the car I would go with Bluetooth. It would be the easiest. Either other option would require an internet connection inside the vehicle. There are companies out there that offer Bluetooth controlled relay boards. I would start there. Who is going to be designing the hardware and developing the app? I would think that whoever that person is they should be specifying what parts they want to use, as the right part could make their job easier!Kevin Pierson

Thanks Kevin, I wan't sure about Bluetooth though I mentioned WiFi, possibly also Zigbe. OP, first I looked at your catalogue, very nice! Have you tied something like Googling remote control via iPad?