Originally Posted by
gugie
I've studied
Anton's flickr site for hours. It's not just one thing he does that makes his wiring so good, it's the cumulation of little things. I especially like his use of
2mm banana plugs. This allows you to disconnect the wiring from front to rear so one can remove the front fork, for example, without having to rewire. Soldering skills are required.
I do all of my lighting jobs that way now.
There are a lot of "recommended practices" for reliable wiring, and while bike lighting isn't the most hostile environment, it certainly does benefit from adopting a number of them. Reliable connectors, strain relief at the connectors, proper soldering practices, proper crimping methods for any connector contacts (and this usually requires pricey tools), support of the wire bundle at frequent intervals, etc.
Anton does like the 2mm plugs, so I assume he has been getting good results. As an electrical engineer who has dealt with connector issues in the fields of aviation and earthmoving equipment, I'd like these plugs better if I knew who made them or what their intended applications are.
Personally, I've been using some Amphenol (formerly Deutsch) pins and sockets for dynamo wiring for about 16 years or so.
The pins are found here at Digikey (a package of 10):
AT60-202-20NKIT Amphenol Sine Systems Corp | Connectors, Interconnects | DigiKey
and the sockets are here:
AT62-201-20NKIT Amphenol Sine Systems Corp | Connectors, Interconnects | DigiKey
These are machined pins, which are a bit fancy, I suppose. There are stamped versions, which are a tad cheaper.
AT60-16-0122 Amphenol Sine Systems Corp | Connectors, Interconnects | DigiKey
AT62-16-0122 Amphenol Sine Systems Corp | Connectors, Interconnects | DigiKey
Gold plated versions are available too, but these are only required for low current signals (a few mA). For bike lights, the nickle plating is very reliable and more durable than the gold.
Not saying that the 2mm bananas aren't good enough... just saying that some of us want to know the details of the parts that we use. Chalk it up to a career as an engineer that had to worry about every detail.
Steve in Peoria