Originally Posted by
steelbikeguy
It will be a ludicrous amount of work to prototype something like this, but it'll be interesting.
I've got a Jos block dynamo that I've owned since the 70's, and it would be neat to upgrade it to something modestly functional. With the incandescent bulb, it's barely acceptable in total darkness where your eyes can fully adapt to darkness.
If it works, maybe I can find someone else who can machine whatever little core will be needed to mount the LEDs and help conduct heat away from the LEDs. The electronics would be fairly trivial. Then, with luck, I could offer it to the handful of folks who have some of these great old lights (the Jos, the Radios, etc) that deserve to be kept operating.
Of course, the optics on these old lights are just horrible, so they will never come close to what modern lights can do. Still, it might be enough to make the usable.
Steve in Peoria
Depending on the diameter of the lens behind the plastic lens cover of that Jos, you might be able to retrofit modern optics in there. I retrofitted just a few vintage French headlights. The IQ-TEC lens and guts from a B&M IQ Cyo premium can fit nicely in a vintage Luxor 50 (I also retrofitted the matching taillight with the guts of a B&M Seculite plus):
And a vintage Cibie headlight. This one had some generic LED and focuser retrofitted, I can't remember where I found it. The B&M was too large for this little guy:
