I think you'd be better off buying the Nashbar unit, and geeking it up. That's just my $0.02 worth - YMMV.

Yep, take it apart, geek it up and solder on a AA/AAA battery holder

Geek point safe and secure, Becca! When you referred to the switches that were similar I got the impression you had put something together. I am going to check the Nashbar set. Since I am using a good size (44 LED) stop/turn/tail light, currently wired on the brake (high) setting, with a brake light switch I could wire it to behave as it is intended, low for tail light, bright for brakes.

The housing on the Nashbar seems too small. Where do you get the holders. Radio Shirk didn't have 'em (and barely understood the term breadboard).

No, I meant throw away the housing and use the guts for a custom job. DigiKey, Allied Electronics, Newark, etc...

You mean you try to get your parts at Rat Shack? I'd try to find a REAL electronics parts store if I were you. In Houston I go to EPO (Electronics Parts Outlet) which has everything my little heart goes pitty pat over from your standard electronic parts to neon, and leds, to electric motors and solar panels (anyone set up a solar battery charger for their bike yet?). If you can find a place like EPO where you live that would make your geek endevors so much easier (not to mention the folks at EPO know electrinics and when I come to them with a question have set up breadboards to experiment with circuits to test compatability).

I've seriously considered making a solar battery charger for the bicycle, but two things made me change my mind:

1) No really safe place for stowing the charger when not in use, and

2) My bicycle isn't out in the sun all that much.

Yeah, it'd be totally awesome, and it *could* work, but....

Not found in Yahoo Yellow pages under electronic parts..just distributors. How would I find a local shop?

I like https://www.superpages.com/ for finding businesses. I tried it for my area; just put in "electronic" as the business type, your city and state, and hit search. You'll get a list of various companies that offer "electronic" something - I then went to "Electronic components".

Geek story of the week. My 18V drill light has been working great and shines much further than the 16V light....It has about a 1 block throw and lights the side of the road nicely.

So the other night while coming home from work, I see out of the corner of my eye, 4 brown sticks- no legs! a deer! We looked at each other and freeked! After she dashed off, I switched off the geek light and rode with just the LED... we're talk'n no way. That deer would have bolted right in front of the bike.

Then about 3miles up, it was pitch dark/raining and somebody forgot to pull in their tall blue recycle can. The geek light spotted it at about 100 feet! The LED would have spotted it at about 5' and I would have had to swerve into traffic or topple over it!

After you've soldered your connection (or used connectors, whichever), simply put some RTV over the exposed wire/connections. That'll keep out the water!

My last post to you was due to my looking for what you meant by your geek light and your LED light... curious what each of those were.

Well there's been a series of evolutions projects on here with several people including myself.

I avoided the SLA route due to battery weight and steep hills. ...Made a cool light consisting of a 1lb drill battery hooked to just the head of a flashlight that came with another drill set and brake assembly. Then the bike got stolen, so I made another but only had parts for an 18V light...aw darn... it was brighter and better!

The OLD LED is a cave exploring light and is just a spare in case, the 18V runs out of juice (hasn't yet). Now the newest project is the LED turn signals etc. which seem like over kill to many but for me it's hard to hand-signal and brake with one hand on a hill. I need about 100 feet of signaling before actually cutting the turn.

Just ordered the Nashbar brake sensor to make the brake assembly.

I just weighed the SLA for my Nite Hawk - 2.2 lbs. Just a thought.

And the LED turn signals - trust me, it's WAY easier to signal a turn that way, and the cages actually *understand* it!

I never hand-signal - I don't feel comfortable taking my hands off the bars for that long, and that's even with straight handlebars. (had some bad one-handed biking face-plant mishaps in the past) I'm probably working on a custom turn-blinker/brakelight after I finish my custom headlight and tail-light. I'm going to use 1-Watt orange-red Luxeons and MicroPuck drivers, but haven't thought about the switching circuit yet.

My second-favorite book is Horowitz & Hill's "Art of Electronics".

Hey all I am about complete on my system but got a techie question for y'all.

I have a 3Ah sealed lead-acid battery that I just got and I'm trying to charge it and ran into a problem.. and trying to not burn the house down.

Reading the posts and stuff on the internet, everyone says I can just use some standard 12V 500ma power source plugged into the battery and it will charge up.
So I had a 12V 500ma AC/DC adpter that I plugged into the battery. and it was blowing the in-line fuses I put into the battery connection constantly..
So I tried it directly and the cord from the DC adapter got really hot and of course started to smoke the adapter. so it fried it.. meaning the amps going into the battery were WAY higher than what the adapter was allowing. Don't want to go down that route and burn anything up.

What am I doing wrong or did I miss something about charging a SLA battery from a charger and need something special? I am following diagrams.. I plug + to + and - to - right?

I'm not sure the issue was the 500ma you were putting into it. That shouldn't blow a fuse. I think you had a short, perhaps.

Go to Batteries Plus (or some similar battery store) and ask for the right charger for the job. Have them also test your battery to see if it's still good.

The battery is good. it's brand spankin' new.. and I checked all the polariyies over and over to see if there was a short even.. could the SLA do something like PULL too much juice into it? its really weird.. the DC charger was supplied with a rechargable flashlight too.. I'll check the connections.. + from the charger goes to + on the battery, right?

500 ma should be just right for a small battery like that. I have burned up a couple of inexpensive power supplies like that. In both cases I am pretty certain I unintentionally had the polarity reversed. I knew to connect + to +, etc., but apparently misunderstood the markings on the power supply as to which wire was which. In one case I know that is what happened because I had bought two identical power supplies, cheap, like $2.95. After I burned up the first one I held my breath and tried the other one with the wires opposite. It worked. So either I misunderstood or the markings on the ps were wrong. Now I always double check with my DMM.

If you have a digital multimeter you can use it to find the polarity of a power supply. For recharging I too used wall warts that were the right voltage and wattage, but I got tired of monitoring the recharge process so I wouldn't fry the battery. I got a nice plug and forget recharger at Zbattery for $13.45. The best money I ever spent on a recharger. They also have good prices on SLA batteries.

SLA batteries require a special recharging method. Go buy a recharger made for it, and don't burn the house down!

Hey all,
Here's my creation with some pics so far.

My plan of attack on creating the lights was to first create a viable halogen system with cheap parts, then gradually phase in higher-end bulbs and parts such as LED based MR-11s and some Luxeon 3 and 5-watt bulbs (that i probably will build myself). And here is the halogen system so far...

So right now, it's a 20-watt MR11-based system running of a NiMH 12-cell array of 2250mAh AA batteries. I was considering buying a 10-cell C-size array from a vendor and fitting it into the system also. The batteries and charger on Ebay would be $36 or so.. maybe later...
so it's over volted right now.. but may scale it down to 10 units.
I also have another converted water bottle that houses my 3Ah SLA battery..

I'm not sure if I'm going to continue to use the 12- AA cells cause it's a pain to pull them all out and recharge. and I don't want to pay $40 for a 12/14.4V niMH smart charger and charge the batteries in the water bottle.. maybe later when I feel like spending money again.

All the parts were either Home Depot, Radio shack or a local electronics store.. The cord I'm using was on a wicked sale at Radio shack.. it is used as extension cord for their DC adapters. so I bought a couple of lengths and can string them together to any length if needed.

What's next: a good way to mount the system on handlebars, and create a second bulb housing and use lower wattage bulbs for high-low beam..

Total cost: around $40

The charger you have for the batteries... how about making a cord to fit a space in it, and taking that cord down to the bottle? Worth a try, and would save a bit of headache!

I'm kinda off the idea of using a water bottle for my battery. I only have one water bottle mount on my bike, and the Nite Hawk battery takes that up. It's quite annoying. I'd rather use an extra seat bag attached to my head- and down-tubes to hold the battery - which is what I did with my home-brew setup. I'm thinkin' about cracking open the case on my NH battery (I've already screwed the warranty anyway, might as well mess with it until it works the way I want!) and put it into the bag.

Be sure that whatever setup you arrive at is waterproof. Condensation and simple downpours can lead to interesting results!

Ain't that the truth! With my old setup, I had sealed the battery into an upside-down baggie before inserting it in the seat bag. That kept water out of there - it never gave me trouble rain or shine.