I'm trying to find a battery and charger for cheap, the sort that LittleBigMan found at Pep Boys. I can't find one. Any recomendations?

I stopped by my local battery shop and the only had a $25 battery and no charger available. I'd really like to do it for less money than that.

Thanks

I'm an idiot. I found the vector on a link someone previously provided. I'll order it soon.

Multibiker, that is some amazing light output from the dual 1W Luxeons. I'm considering buying some flashlights on eBay that use 3W Luxeon emitters, and then modify them for use as headlights. Mine will be 20 lumens brighter for each emitter, I'm realling looking forward to seeing how bright they'll be!

Also, about the heatskinks, are those really necessary? If I'm using 3W emitters, I can't help but wonder if the body of the flashlight will get super-hot. I'll have to do some calculations when I get home based on their datasheets to see how much modification will be required to the flashlights. Apparently you can run the 3W lamps without a heatsink at 100mA, but you only get a fraction of the maximum 65 lumens. Running at 700mA, they will surely dump a whole lot more heat! I hope I don't have to attach any heatsinks......

Here's a commercial version that runs on 12 Volts...

http://store.wheelshield.us/category.php?qcc=3&qpg=1

Jeff-o, at 300 ma. without a heat sink the Emitters became too hot to touch after 10 seconds or so, but it takes only a small heat sink to keep them happy. The problem is all the heat is produced in such a small area. A properly designed flashlight will have some way of keeping the LED cool. I wouldn't expect the body of the flashlight to get very hot even with a 3W Emitter. You will get plenty of light though!

Hey as long as you found it...you're good to go!

Yeah, that's the impression I got from reading the datasheets. Well, I guess I'll see in a week or two how well designed these flashlights really are. The fact that they're pulling 3W from three AAA batteries is kinda suspicious to me, so I'm really looking forward to pulling apart one of these flashlights when they finally arrive.

Hmmm.... 3W from three AAA cells is about an Amp. Let us know what you find out when they arrive. In the meantime you might want to check out the Candlepower forums if you haven't already. Huge amount of info there.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubb...ubbthreads.php

Oh wow, a whole forum dedicated to discussing flashlights! Complete with thread titles like, "What's your favourite 2-4 D Maglite LED bulb?" How dorky is that??? Still, there's some useful info in here. It took a lot of effort not to register just so that I could chastize someone for spending $35 on a flashlight that I bought on eBay for $12...

Here is my 2 cents worth, I always believe that there is a better flashlight, so for you flashlight modifiers darkgear

I don't quite know how to build/modify LED's, but this guy has been messing with, and documenting ALL consumer LED products at the ledmuseum

And lately the Luxeon seems to be coming on strong, a designers page at future electronics

And how to boost your LED back light at Borealis. Pic below of some of the stuff he does.

RR: Speedmachine Lighting System Maiden Voyage

This is the moment you all have been waiting for. You are such a patient lot! I took the Speedmachine for its first _lighting-equipped_ ride today. We had the family over for Easter so I couldn't get away until 6:30. It was starting to get dark and I haven't built a nighttime headlight yet, all I have is the 1 Watt Nite Hawk, so I was anxious to go.

All suited up standing in the driveway, strap on helmet, climb into Speedmachine, flick master switch. Eighty (80) LEDs light up in a blaze of glory. A cheer goes up from the people on the porch behind me. Grab a handful of brake and clip my left foot in. Signal right turn into the street, launch... we're off... clip right foot in. Wow, this feels soooo good! Traffic signal coming up... it's green, keep pedaling and ignore the stares. Settle into an easy 20 MPH cruise. Half a mile down the road signal a left turn. Carve a smooth arc into the side street. Suspension feels pretty good, but maybe I'll add a little air to firm it up a bit when I get back.

Ride around the subdivision a while, getting used to the bike again. I haven't ridden the Speedmachine since last October but it's all coming back now. Sure is smoother than the mountain bikes I've been riding all winter. I stop at stop signs and obey all traffic laws just like a motor vehicle. What's that beeping? Oops, forgot to turn of my blinker.

I turn into a paved pathway through a wooded park. Ahead is a family of four out for a Sunday walk. When they see me coming they all move well off the path and stand there with their mouths open. They look like they've seen a Martian. I say 'Hi!' as I pass.

Hang a right onto Twyn Rivers and set up to make a left at the next light. Twyn Rivers is one lane each direction and quite busy, and there isn't a left turn lane at this light. I take the lane and click on my left turn signal. Cars are approaching fast from behind. I hit the brake and I can see in my mirrors the cars are stopping behind me. Turn left onto Woodview and ride North about 3 blocks. What's that beeping? Damn, I forgot to turn off the blinker... again. There's a beeper in the main control module on the back of the seat but it's not very loud - it sounds like a truck backing up a block away. Make mental note to self to turn up the volume.

I'm cruising along in pure bliss, enjoying every one of these 42 Fahrenheit degrees after suffering through a long cold winter. All of a sudden a basketball comes rolling down a driveway into the road in front of me, followed closely behind by a kid. Wow, I must be on TV, this is just like a commercial for tires. Cover the brakes, a quick toot on the horn and the kid skids to a stop.

Keep on cruisin'. Everywhere I go I'm getting comments like 'Cool bike,' 'Awesome' and 'Whoa! Look at that!' It's getting darker now. I look down at the road under me and I can see the pool of blue-green light from the Warp Drive. Did I mention how cool it is? I think it makes the bike go faster too. I ride around some more. Signal my turns, stop, launch... I'm having a blast. Drivers behave as if they understand my signals and seem to give me more room than usual.

Better head for home, it's almost dark. The Night Hawk headlight puts out a more useful light than I expected. I never intended to use it by itself for night riding, but after tonight's ride I would say it's just about adequate for short rides on lit streets. It lights enough of the road to show potholes and other hazards, and street signs and vehicle reflectors glow brightly. It has a very tight beam though, and provides almost no peripheral light.

Almost home, signal left, turn into driveway, roll up, clip out. The garage doors in front of me are bathed with light from my bike and I'm sitting here in a pool of turquoise. It doesn't get much better than this for this geek.

Conclusions:

1) All the electrical and mechanical systems worked perfectly.

2) Turn up the beeper volume. Work on my short-term memory. Consider changing to a spring-loaded turn signal switch.

3) The Nite Hawk headlight performs better than I expected.

4) Drivers seem to understand my turn signals.

5) The brake light definitely keeps cars off my tail.

6) An Air Zound horn is a great people mover.

7) The Warp Drive is coolness.

So was it worth the 100+ hours of planning, designing, measuring, cutting, drilling, bending, riveting, punching, etching, soldering, gluing, taping, painting, etc? You must be kidding. I'll tell you after I've finished building Ver. 2.0.

sweeeeet.

Perhaps someday my trek will be bathed in red LED light... to match the paint, of course. ;)

Short Circuit

Yesterday I took the Speedmachine out for the second time with the new lighting system. Everything worked great for the first half hour, then I noticed the low battery light was on. Then it went off, then on again. It seemed that every time I went over a bump the battery OK and low battery lights would flicker. So I turned the system off and headed home.

As soon as I took the cover off of the main module I knew something was wrong — I could smell burned insulation. One of the four current limiting resistors for the turn signals was fried. Hmmmm... what could cause that to happen?

Aha! After some investigation I found that a component lead on the main circuit board had come into contact with one of the power switch terminals. This effectively applied 12 Volts across a 12 ohm 1/2 watt resistor. This works out to 12V/12 ohms = 1 amp x 12V = 12 Watts. No wonder the resistor fried. I replaced the resistor with a new one and added a piece of insulation to avoid a repeat performance.

Today's ride was uneventful and everything worked perfectly. After using all the lights for an hour the battery voltage is 16.31V (14.8V is about half and 12V is empty).

OK, if I'm going to make a tail light out of 8000 mcd red LEDs, how many LEDs do you think I should use? 20? Driven at half-power it's only 10mA each, for a total of 200mA and 80,000mcd of light. Not too shabby... ;)

Sounds good, but do you think you will get full output if you drive them with 10ma? You might consider a series/parallel arrangement to keep your battery happy. What kind of battery are you thinking of using?

An alternative is to use one or two Luxeon Stars. Each one is about as bright as twenty 5mm. LEDs, and they give you a lot of design flexibility, i.e. there are all kinds of lenses and optics available for them. But they cost about $6.25 ea. in unit quantities so this might end up being more expensive.

Yeah, I could either run 20 LEDs at half power for more visibility, or 10 LEDs at full power for the same brightness. I haven't decided if I will concentrate the LEDs in one place (the end of the rack on my bike) or if I'll make two LED bars of 10-12 LEDs each that will fasten to my drop bars. The LED bar would be encased in some sort of diffusing plastic. If I chose the second option it would certainly be quite visible from the side and back, and would be different enough to catch motorist's eyes. Certainly in either case I would use a series/parallel combination so that I could use as few voltage drop resistors as possible.

I have 7.2V, 5400mAh LiIon battery to work with, but that has to drive both my dual (or perhaps even triple...) 3W luxeon array as well as any tail lights. I'll have to check what the maximum current drain on this battery is, as long as it's 1 amp or more I should be OK. I'd prefer 1.5A, though.

Well, the battery for my lighting system arrived today. It turns out, it's actually a 9V 5400mAh lithium ion battery, so it's even more powerful than I planned! This is excellent. I've calculated that it will draw 6.3W for a dual light system outputting 120 lumens (but no tail light), which should last for over 7.5 hours! If one of these battery packs is supposed to last for 3 hours, that means a current of 1.8 A is being drawn... more than enough overhead for this application. I may even be able to add a THIRD luxeon for a blinding 180 lumens. Now I'm just waiting for the luxeons flashlights to arrive...

I hope that farting worm, or whatever it was, is gone for good. Sheesh. Anyhow, that's one Muthah of a battery you got there! You'll be able to do some wondrous things. Let us know when the flashlights arrive.

Yep. It's 6" by 3.5" by 3/4". Weighs less than a pound. It came with a wall charger, a car charger and five different plugs (though I won't be using the plugs). The best feature of all though? You can press a button on the side and four LEDs light up indicating the amount of charge remaining. $15.50 on eBay, plus shipping.

Here is my contribution to world geekiness.

The front light is a 4" 25watt 12 volt sealed beam halogen outdoor floodlight that I got at Home Depot. The black plastic housing is the one it was intended to be used with. I put a bead of silicone sealant around the bulb to keep it from vibrating. The light is mounted to the bike using a piece of 1"x1/4" aluminum bar that I bent into shape and attached to the front fork. The light is supported with a small piece of 3/4" aluminum angle iron. This pivots up-down on the lights mounting and left-right on the main bracket to allow aiming. I used nylon washers to shim the light mount to fit the aluminum angle iron.

The back has two lights -- a 12v strobe light that I got from Active Electronics, and a regular blinkie light. They are both mounted to a piece of 3/4" aluminum angle that is bolted to the rear rack. The strobe and the headlight are powered by a 12v, 2.2ah sealed lead acid battery that I got from ZBattery.com. I carry the battery in my pannier.

I used this setup all winter and I've been very happy with it. I find cars give me a much wider berth than in daylight. I really like the large front light, as it looks "vehicular." The rear strobe is bright enough to use as a daytime light as well. The blinkie is a backup light and meets the legal requirement for a red taillight.

While I was posting this, my wife looked over my shoulder. "Pictures of your bike?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm posting them to BikeForums."

"Somethings broken and you need someone to tell you how to fix it?" she hazarded.

"Actually, I'm posting pictures of my lights."

"You mean you're proud of that?"

I have achieved true geekiness.

You have indeed! Nice setup, practical, light weight, and it does the job.

DCCommuter,
My wife had a similar reaction when she found me cruising the bike forums. Hence I posted photos of my bike and lights one night when she was out. I guess I'm a closeted geek. I also use some homebuilt lights and I really like both the amount of light they provide and the relatively low cost. I guess if we learn nothing else from Bill Gates it is that geeks rule the world.

I've got the Malibu 20 watt used by LittleBigMan at the beginning of this thread and I want to replace the stock MR16 with a smaller MR11, but I can't get the darn thing out of the housing. Any ideas?

Hammer.

Just kidding. ;)

P.S. Reply #700!