Delta Engine Blog

AI, Robotics, multiplatform game development and Strict programming language

Building Traffic Lights for our CruiseControl Server

I just quickly assembled some cheap parts (LEDs for $7, some old network cable, 2 traffic lights and some light switches I got for free) together for our CruiseControl Server build results. Currently it still has to be switched on and off manually, but once our DigiSpark Boards (Arduino) arrive we plan to automate that too.

In case you are interested in our build results, we publish them every time a build happens on our build server. Internally we obviously use CCTray to get notified while working if anything broke, but it is also nice walking through the office seeing a green light and knowing everything is okay.

Step 1 for my quick 15 minute LED-Assembly was getting some power out of my PC into the network cable (I used some CAT6 cable for less resistance since the cables are pretty big and isolated well, but anything should work). The black cable is ground, yellow is 12V (which is what my LED panels want), red is 5V (unused).


Next up was grabbing two old lamps for the light switches and connecting the cables.


Finally I taped the LED panel strip to the back of the traffic lights (btw: these are old East Germany traffic lights, normal traffic lights don't look that way in Germany). Probably separating the LEDs out a bit more would look cooler, but from a far all you care about is green or red.


And this is how it looks like when switching on the red light (if a build brakes).


The LEDs are pretty bright and visible even at daylight (not as well, but you know if green or red is on).