How did I miss this post!!
I love this stuff! , I have been running home mades for almost 20 years now.
Time for me to show off , But a little backgroud. at a Job I had many moons ago. we had a medical instrument that was hideous , and when all the sales Demos came back from the field they had to me made un usable . well in this instument was a 7.2 volt 4 Ah Nicad pack . They were going to have to pay to get rid of them instead My self and 4 or 5 others "took" them off there hands . so I started out with about 30 of these Packs , I'm down to about 10 now.
here was my first Light
using 2 - 7.2 volt 4.0 aH batteries . stated that isa Fog lamp with some angle iron and pipe clamps.
it started with a 55 watt Bulb in it butthat ate batteries just too fast , so It later became a 20 Wtt andthe tail light would be replaced by vista lights , other wise it is a trucks tail light .
Next I gutted a Cateye , and Put a 20 Watt Halogen in it , worked great in Cold weather . unfortuantly one warm March night it caught fire . I wish I had saved the rest of it ( the reflector and back cover were destroyed ) I actually ran with 2 of these on the bars 1 with a 10 watt bulb , and 1 with a 20 watt.
and they were powered with the same Batteries
OK this was another early attempt to "be lit up like a cristmas tree" I still have them and they still work
OK this is one of my CUrrent lights .
using a low voltage light from Home depot with a 12 volt 20 watt MR16
Now this was a good idea but it had heat problems , an 12 volt 28 watt MR 11 , in a Piece of PVC , it suffered a Meltdown . ( this same bulb lived for a long while in a Cheezy flash light case till is finally melted it away. ) and it also put a good melt mark in my helmet.
This is one that works remarkably well
I Did not use those batteries ( those batteries are another experiment , using LI-Ion Batteris )
I carry with with me as an emergency light . it is a 5 watt , 6 volt MR-11 in PVC .
I can't say enough about this one it is good!
this is the one I used till Just recently .
it isa MR -16 20 watt , 12 volt , from a piece of track lighting ( bought at a yard sale for 50 cents )
I cut the tranformer unit off and strap it to my Helmet and Bingo. and it uses the same Nicad batteries
I used this in 24 Hrs of adrenilin this past june !
also Used in the 24 Hr race ( bar mounted ) 45 White Led's ( at this point it only had 28 LED's
I powered it with 2 - LI-IOn cells in parralel from an Old Dell Laptop. Works very good , But Chargin LI-IOn is a Royal Pain, that is it 's big draw Back. May move it to NiMH or Ni-cad.
and Now this is my Latest and greatest! an Ebay Special $5 for a Specilized Pro-view , which is a Bad system 12 Wat tBulb , Mad to be powered by 5 D batteries , well get rid of Batteries and use one of my Ni-cad Packs and wire it up Better , and Wa-la ! a Great system !
comments ? suggestions ? questions ?