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Help. My shimano light only has one wire. Not two.

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Help. My shimano light only has one wire. Not two.

Old 10-24-15, 07:03 PM
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Help. My shimano light only has one wire. Not two.

Hey guys,
I just bought this generator light. It doesn't have two wires coming out of it. My bike has a modern shimano dynamo hub with the connector hub. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Shimano Bicycle Generator Light LED Nexus 6V 2 4W Dual Bulb LED | eBay
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Old 10-24-15, 08:51 PM
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it no doubt uses the frame as the second wire, I'm pretty sure that shimano hubs short ground to the frame. So just hook up the one wire to the hot side on the hub connector. The ground side is marked with a fork symbol, use the other connection for your one wire
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Old 10-24-15, 10:33 PM
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Originally Posted by unterhausen
it no doubt uses the frame as the second wire, I'm pretty sure that shimano hubs short ground to the frame. So just hook up the one wire to the hot side on the hub connector. The ground side is marked with a fork symbol, use the other connection for your one wire
Thanks!

So just hook up another wire to another part of the frame? Does it matter if it's the front fork? That would be closer. Also, my bike is aluminum not steel. Should that matter to ground it?

Yes, one of the slots has a 3 prong fork on it.
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Old 10-24-15, 11:37 PM
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One of the issues is that paint probably won't conduct electricity, so you probably will have to break the paint in two places, for the lamp mount, and the connection for the negative generator wire.

Aluminum is a better conductor than steel. Carbon fiber is also a fairly good conductor, at least the fibers (it may be held together with non-conductive epoxy). As far as the fork... It should be ok. Although you could have multiple levels of isolation. Steel bearings should conduct from race to race. And the races should make good enough contact to the frame, but again paint or something could isolate one.

An option is to run a second (ground) wire from the generator to the clamp on the light.
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