conradpdx

Ok so I finally got a dyno set up for my bike. And my wife got me one of the Miller duel bulb headlights for Christmas (it's georgous/flawless btw). Now I'm a bit concerned about going to three bulbs off the 6 volt dynohub, however I've seen that you can get a rectifier fairly inexpensively and LED bulbs for more brightness. And I'm thinking that perhaps I'd like to make a modern Dynolux that combines the rectifier with rechargeable lithium AA batteries (mostly to keep the lights on at stops). But honestly I'm not much of an electrician.

I mean really one of the things I'm most proud of in all my building experience (even as a construction worker/foreman) is that I managed to wire a 3 way switch in my kitchen (don't laught it aint easy) , but I'm wondering how hard it'd be to combine a rectifier with a rechargeable battery pack that feeds into the light system.

And am I wrong in thinking that with the rectifier and and battery pack that excess power that would normally blow bulbs be used to charge the batteries rather than blow the bulbs?

Or should I just forget it and get the LED's and a rectifier and risk rear ender at night with no lights? (just jokeing I'm not one who is affraid to ride) I was a paper boy and rode without lights and helmets in the dark for years....

Road Fan

There is an Electronics and Lighting Forum here on BF. I think there are people there who have done LED conversions on vintage dyno lights like a Miller. Take your question over there and see what happens.

krobinson103

Hmm... Lithium chemistry generally gives you 3.7-4.1v per cell. If you have an output from the generator of 6v I'd be more inclined to go with a bank of four NiMh cells (AA or Sub c depending on how much power you need). That way even if they do get a slight overcharge they won't kill themselves. Lithium is picky when it comes to how its charged. I killed a few of those using them as power source for a cell phone without the nessecary monitoring gadget.

If you run the generator through the batteries then on to the headlight then it will pull its power from the batteries thus keeping a constant brightness. The generator will recharge the batteries at the same time giving you endless light. The battery pack would also act as a filter so any voltage spikes won't reach your bulbs.

You could also run a bypass around the battery pack for times when you don't need to charge them. It would be fairly simple.