Electronics, Lighting, & Gadgets - vintage light, dynamo, LEDs

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Circuit #6 from pilom.com in an Altoid tin. Whoppers are better, but the milk carton makes a poor handibox.

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10-32x1-1/4 ss socket head cap screws used to mount Pletscher rack are long enough to mount Altoids tin. Rubber grommets were used wherever wires pass through metal.

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Luxor Martele tail light has "super-bright" 6V screw-in LED bulb replacing original incandescent bulb.

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Luxor No65 Martele headlamp has been fitted with a Cree Q5 emitter.

Test ride, 10:15PM January 1st, 2010:

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Mathilde, Mars, and Red Hill Church in the moonlight.

Everything works great. Headlight comes on just pushing the bike through the shop. Quickly reaches max brightness even at fairly low speed. No flickering. Lights up the road really well.
Very happy with the results.

Nice job and other than the Altoids tin it all still looks stock. I bet the amount of light is greatly increased. How is the beam shape from the headlight? Is it using the original reflector?

The Q5 came in a surefire/ultafire 6p housing with a screw-on turned aluminum rflector and brass base. I enlarged the opening in the original Luxor reflector to allow the new assembly to screw together on either side of the Luxor reflector, locking the Q5 into position, and still retaining the usw of the new reflector.

The beam is dispersed somewhat by the headlamp lens, but projects a nice beam onto the road, lighting the immediate area in front of the bike very well, with the distance illuminated quite well also.

The headlamp angle can be adjusted up or down if need.

I'm impressed by the amount of light it puts out; way more than any generator or battery & bulb light I've used. Still less than modern state-of-the-art systems, but this seems a very practical comprimise that retains the vintage look of the bike.

Very cool.

Where do you find the LED bulbs? Also, is the Cree emitter a custom build?

Found both on ebay:

the 10mm screw-in bulbs from a fellow in Kent, UK selling under usefulbits, 3 for $5 + shipping

and the cree q5 bulb from netpedlar in China for $14 w/shipping

What's all the circuit stuff in the Altoids box?

In the Altoids tin are a full wave bridge rectifier, a pair of 470mF tuning caps and a 2200mF filter cap.

uF?

uF?

yes, uF

I like it.

I assume the circuit in the Altoids box is required because of using a dynamo to power the LED's. I used to have a Soubitez dynamo light. It had an awesome beam pattern.

I wouldn't mind running my Magicshine off from a dynamo.
Unfortunately, I don't have the knowledge to even begin to attempt to do so. I know just enough to know that I don't know enough.
I would buy a unit that would allow me to do this.

The Magicshine draws a lot more current than a dynamo will put out. So far as I know it has the 4 LEDs on the die wired in parallel. A high output LED headlight needs the LEDs hooked up in series. As the LEDs are not rewireable on the Magicshine light LED die that I know of you need to figure another solution.

yes, uF

No, μF ;)

If you ride in heavy rain, the lid of that Altoids box is not gonna keep the water out. No gasket, no pressure, and the drip path leads water right to the lid/box joint.

Nice Peug! I have a UO-8 in that color.

I'm interested in doing this conversion and wish the pictures were visible. My complication is that my rear light is already an LED (Busch & Müller Lumotec 4DLight Plus (http://www.fairfieldbicycle.com/pages-standard/products.php?product_id=1636)) that has some electronics in it. Because of that, if I convert my old front incandescent bulb, I'm wondering whether I'd have to modify the circuitry from the diagram (http://pilom.com/BicycleElectronics/DynamoCircuits.htm#TailLight) for converting a wholly incandescent system. I may have to dig out the instructions/spec sheet on that tail light to see what’s in there besides the LEDs.

Should I just ignore my fear and wire in the electronics the diagram says? Or maybe the diodes and capacitors in the rear light will do all the converting necessary for both lights and I can just swap in an LED up front…? Brain strain.