Might be fun to build a replica.


: Mike

Indeed, indeed it would! Are you starting with a frame already set aside?

Sadly no. My new years resolution was to finish the current projects and to quit buying parts for the rest of the year. So I have assumed the role of being a bad influence and hope that someone picks up the idea and builds something cool while we all get to follow along.
I love to follow scratch builds with much detail and many plot twists as the saga progresses, it doesn't look like many projects are getting documented lately, I miss that.

: Mike

I've been trying to do this for a while, but keep coming up with new projects because "it won't take very long to finish". Ha!!

One project that I want to get back to work on is a backlight for a piece of stained glass. The stained glass is a reproduction(?) of the Raleigh logo that a friend made for me a long time ago. I haven't had a good window to hang it in, so I wanted to make a backlight so I could just display it on the wall. I did make a backlight, but I need to diffuse the LEDs more.



Most of my projects have been electronic. One of my backlogged projects is to figure out how to retrofit LEDs into vintage headlights in a useful way.

Steve in Peoria

Hi Steve,
That is magnificent, I'm looking forward to what you come up with for a headlamp led conversion as I also have a box of Miller headlamps in various states of decrepitude.

: Mike

H**Y CRAP MAN!

That is flippin awesome.

thanks!
It is nice and really deserves to lit properly and displayed.
It was based partly on the Raleigh head badge on my Gran Sport and on this hoodie from Micheal's Cyclery (I was going to college in Ames, IA where the shop was located).



I'm still in contact with my friend that made this for me 35 years ago.... just in case anyone wants to ask for a quote (not sure if she is still doing stained glass work or not).

Steve in Peoria

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

Very cool, well aware of Micheal's, it was a mecca for racers of the day, Hampsten, Howard, Meeker and many more.

I have a bike from Micheal Bornstein that he built when he was at Strawberry here in PDX. He worked at Micheal's before and after that I believe. It was supposedly Greg Meeker's training bike for the Olympics that he didn't get to.

I think you should forget about the backlight and build a window to put this in. You could even build an entire cathedral around it. How’s that for a project? Great looking piece of art!

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:

It's not every day that one see's a component engraved with the name of a bike shop! I wonder if that was supposed to keep track of ownership??
I think Michael's survived by serving the college students, but there were signs that they weren't the average Raleigh shop. Maybe it was the wall size photo of Jeff Bradley (if memory serves) when you walked in? Or maybe it was the little shrine to Andy Hampsten in the back? This was in the 1981 to mid 80's, when the shop was still on the corner. They later moved to a larger space that had been Nim's Sportsman Exchange.

Very nice frame! Lots of work went into thinning that seat lug!

Steve in Peoria

If the reflector and bulb holder can be removed from the lamp assembly in a non-destructive fashion, I think your method is optimal. Do you just use RTV, or some other non-permanent adhesive, to mount the optics and 'tronics of the donor light? How much can be done to get the heat moved to the light's housing? That seems to be one of the problems that will unique to each light.

My little Jos light has the reflector attached to the lens, leaving a hole in the reflector that is just large enough to admit the bulb. The bulb itself mounts in a little threaded holder that inserts into the reflector assembly...





My general idea is to make an aluminum part that would fit in place of the bulb holder and would act as a mounting platform for two small LEDs wired in series. The LEDs would be aimed sideways into the reflector. The aluminum piece would serve to conduct the LEDs' heat out to the reflector and then to the light's housing. The aluminum piece would also act as the ground connection, since the reflector served as the return path for the incandescent bulb.
I expect to have the rectifier diodes mounted behind the reflector.

This is very much just in the conceptual stage right now. The goal is to be very minimal but still draw 3 watts from the dynamo.
Like some of my other electronics projects, it will end up being primarily a mechanical project. My hope is that a hacksaw and file will sufficient <fingers crossed>

Steve in Peoria

Most people have not had good luck using existing mirrors and optics designed for incandescent bulbs for LED upgrades. The directional nature of most LEDS does not work well with the old fashioned concave reflectors. As for retrofitting the B&M guts, the challenge was less in mounting (Goop brand adhesive is great!) and more in creating an effective head sink as you mentioned. the B&M reflector has a built-in slot designed to hold the surface-mount LED and heatsink. I was able to use a piece of brass bar stock that fit the slot perfectly. I bent the bar stock to fit inside the Luxor housing, and covered some of the bar stock with shrink tubing and used it to affix the main board from the B&M. This photo pretty much sums it up. You can see the backside of the reflector glued to the original reflector bezel. No original parts were destroyed in the retrofitting process.

Tx!

Yeah, the guy I got it from said they loaned lots of parts and all else out. He also said these brakes came with the bike when he got it but who knows. It was here in PDX when I got it.

I saw a story where Hampsten checked in on Micheal and he was having a tough time with a leaky roof so Andy hung out and fixed it for him, this was well into his Pro days.

The whole frame is like that lug, it has huge fork blades and when Andy from Strawberry saw it he confirmed the build story, he also went a little nuts showing it to several people at the show, had me take the front wheel off to look at the fork tangs.

Its pretty cool, a bit small but rides very nice and the PDX connection is golden for me.