How-To: $2 adjustable fork mounted supplementary LED lights
10-05-07 | 09:51 AM
#1
Thread Starter
Pants are for suckaz
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 2,578
Likes: 1
From: Mt. Airy, MD
Bikes: Hardtail MTB, Fixed gear, and Commuter bike
How-To: $2 adjustable fork mounted supplementary LED lights
After a very dark run down the local MUP, alone, on Tuesday night I decided I needed some lights to supplement the dynamo powered headlight on my new bike.
I picked up a pair of $1 LED 'clip lights' @ the Dollar Tree.
They are very bright and throw a pretty good spot light beam but as the title says, these would be supplementary to a 'real' headlight.
What you'll need:
Parts:
1-2 clip lights
a piece of old bike innertube
2 zip ties**
Tools:
nipper style pliers
scissors (not pictured)
a lighter (optional)
**required if you do not have front rack mounting screws
Let's begin shall we...
We begin by taking apart the clip section of the light:
the pin that holds the clip spring in place just slides out
and now you have these pieces:
to mount the socket for the light flush on your bike you need to get rid of the plastic tabs that the pin went through
Use the nippers to trim away the raised plastic. A dremel cutting wheel would be faster but the nippers do just fine. after removing the plastic tabs a quick shot with the lighter will melt any sharp plastic edges left by the crude cutting method. Getting rid of sharp edges via flame both helps to protect your paint and incorperates an element of danger to the project. When you finnish the piece should be more or less flat on the bottom.
Now we want to make a rubber gasket to keep the plastic from rubbing on the fork like Michael Jackson rubbing a 6 year old boy.
Because I have mounting screws on my rack I made a piece of rubber the size and shape of the plastic piece but if you are using zip ties to mount the light you might want to use a bigger piece of rubber wrapped all the way around the fork leg. This could also be mounted on a handlebar, stem, front of the top tube, even the sides of the pedals if you wanted to.
I mounted mine using the front rack mounting screws but for the 99% of bikes that do not have these screws you would use the Zip-Ties to secure the light base to the fork. I used green for the how-to but i mounted silver ones on my bike becasue they match the colorscheme.
Becasue the lights are mounted using a ball swivel they can be pointed in any direction and adjusted without tools. Ideally if you were to crash with these lights they would pop out of the sockets and prevent additional dammage to your bike or the lights. (and they cost a dollar to replace if you do destroy one)
They come in silver, red, pink, green, blue, and yellow but all of them light up bluish-white. I have no idea how long the batteries will last but if you regularly ride in the dark for long periods of time you should invest in something better than DollarTree lights.
Done!
I picked up a pair of $1 LED 'clip lights' @ the Dollar Tree.
They are very bright and throw a pretty good spot light beam but as the title says, these would be supplementary to a 'real' headlight.
What you'll need:
Parts:
1-2 clip lights
a piece of old bike innertube
2 zip ties**
Tools:
nipper style pliers
scissors (not pictured)
a lighter (optional)
**required if you do not have front rack mounting screws
Let's begin shall we...
We begin by taking apart the clip section of the light:
the pin that holds the clip spring in place just slides out
and now you have these pieces:
to mount the socket for the light flush on your bike you need to get rid of the plastic tabs that the pin went through
Use the nippers to trim away the raised plastic. A dremel cutting wheel would be faster but the nippers do just fine. after removing the plastic tabs a quick shot with the lighter will melt any sharp plastic edges left by the crude cutting method. Getting rid of sharp edges via flame both helps to protect your paint and incorperates an element of danger to the project. When you finnish the piece should be more or less flat on the bottom.
Now we want to make a rubber gasket to keep the plastic from rubbing on the fork like Michael Jackson rubbing a 6 year old boy.
Because I have mounting screws on my rack I made a piece of rubber the size and shape of the plastic piece but if you are using zip ties to mount the light you might want to use a bigger piece of rubber wrapped all the way around the fork leg. This could also be mounted on a handlebar, stem, front of the top tube, even the sides of the pedals if you wanted to.
I mounted mine using the front rack mounting screws but for the 99% of bikes that do not have these screws you would use the Zip-Ties to secure the light base to the fork. I used green for the how-to but i mounted silver ones on my bike becasue they match the colorscheme.
Becasue the lights are mounted using a ball swivel they can be pointed in any direction and adjusted without tools. Ideally if you were to crash with these lights they would pop out of the sockets and prevent additional dammage to your bike or the lights. (and they cost a dollar to replace if you do destroy one)
They come in silver, red, pink, green, blue, and yellow but all of them light up bluish-white. I have no idea how long the batteries will last but if you regularly ride in the dark for long periods of time you should invest in something better than DollarTree lights.
Done!
10-05-07 | 11:31 AM
#4
Thread Starter
Pants are for suckaz
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 2,578
Likes: 1
From: Mt. Airy, MD
Bikes: Hardtail MTB, Fixed gear, and Commuter bike
I have mine on a rigid framed 'commuter/fitness' bike (08' Raleigh Detour Deluxe) and they haven't moved a bit from where i originally positioned them. Even after a spitirted ride on a greenway with plenty of places where the pavement is buckled from tree roots they are right where i aimed them. I have them sticking straight out so they look like the back of the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek. I think that if they began to slump I'd just find a position i liked and add a drop of PVC cemet to 'weld' the ball joint into place. For the price, even if you had to rig up a solid mounting as opposed to using the ball joint, they would still be a heck of a deal.
