Originally Posted by marcm
I wonder if anyone has ever ridden, or seen anyone riding, a bicycle with a brake light and turn signal lights. Preferably, the brake light could be activated either automatically by braking, or with a separate lever.
It's been done. Check this out:
http://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?c...eid=&pagename=.
Problems:
1) if a cyclist wants electrically-powered brake/turn signals that are visible in full sunlight, it's going to take some serious lights like my Nova or something similar. Not cutesy-pie rinky-dink little lights like I see people posting pics of occasionally.
2) for turn signals to be comprehensible on a narrow vehicle from anything but point-blank range, a strong red running light is needed to show the vehicle's centerline, so people can tell if the amber turn signal is on the left or right of the vehicle. Otherwise, wow, a flashing amber light that doesn't mean anything.
Also, the lights need enough separation that they don't just blend into eachother... some of the sporty motorcycles today are an example of how NOT to do it, since the whole rear light is only about 6 inches wide and incorporates brake + turn signals. Not everyone wants to go around with light struts protruding from their bike
3) the cyclist needs signals that are visible from the front, not just the rear. So that means a headlight as a centerline reference, and front turn-signal lights too.
Back towards the thread topic: A person who wanted a fairly serious brake/running light could get a typical round or oval LED truck brake/turn light, buy that little Nashbar brake light just for the trigger switch, and then wire the switch to the truck light. The truck lights have a running-light mode and then the full-output braking mode.
www.superbrightleds.com,
www.led-r-us.com,
http://www.4statetrucks.com are some sources for truck lights.