Yep, I had to do all that as well. Actually, I replaced the stock LED that was in there with a genuine Luxeon part, and let me tell you they make all the difference. When I bought a three-pack of those lights, each one was a different colour. But the Luxeons I bought are the exact same colours AND brightness, it's really quite amazing. I modified two as in the pictures, but the third I converted to a light for my wife's bike with three clamps and a few screws. That light still uses the original chinese LED and AAAs, though it definitely has a bluish tinge.

So are the Luxeon 3W ones brighter? Did you check LED current for the two cases? Be interesting to know how the currents weigh up...

They both drew the same amount of current, but the Luxeons were brighter and whiter than the knock-offs.

I picked up a Werker brand 5ah SLA battery yesterday for $20 fits nice in my rack pack. I start commuting tommorow.

Thanks for the help!

Today I received some 10w Xenon MR16 bulbs that I had ordered from SailboatStuff.com (http://www.sailboatstuff.com/lt_G4_MR11_MR16.html). Here's a quick review.

I ordered these bulbs for a couple of reasons. First, they were the only 10W bulbs I could find in MR16. My battery pack will only support 25w or so, and I think I'd rather have two 10w lights than a single 20w. I also wanted to see how bright the Xenon is; some people claim that it is dramatically more efficient than halogen.

After doing some comparisons in my darkened basement, my subjective conclusion is that the Xenon is not remarkably brighter than the plain old halogen bulb it replaced. This was an apples-and-orange comparison, as I was comparing the 10w Xenon with a 20w halogen. A single 10w bulb was noticeably dimmer than the 20w halogen, and two bulbs were about the same.

In summary, they seem to be adequate, and I think 2-10w will be a better solution than a single 20w.

How many watts does a typical car headlight draw? Like, a Sylvania Silverstar, for example...

In the 50-65 watt range. See: http://www.sylvania.com/ConsumerProd...ne/default.htm

Alright I stole someones idea to use a drill battery as the power source. I believe they had a problem with the odd shape of the battery (Also hard to get a solid connection). I already own a dewalt 18v drill with two batterys + smart charger (the charger will handle most dewalt battery packs 9.6v-18v). I didn't want to use 18v so I jump on e-bay and looked for a 12v dewalt battery. The average price was 40$ + shipping (no thanks). I noticed that someone was selling a black and decker 12v battery "that fit dewalt drills." I did a little research and verified that some B&D and dewalt batterys were interchangeable. I jumped back on e-bay I picked up a unopened 12v B&D drill + battery + "dumb charger" (Shipped $33). I got the drill and picked up the dremal of death and here is the product.

The battery charges on the dewalt smart charger just fine. All I need to do now is mount it everything.

Yesterday my amber xenon strobe quit working. It served me well for a year and a half. I depended on it to attract attention from the rear even during the daytime.

I had trouble finding a replacement at first, then I remembered this thread. Sure enough, a I found exactly what I was looking for on this website http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bi...-3A&type=store. I ordered it by phone and it cost me $8.95. Since they charge $6.00 for shipping, I decided to buy a new 5AH gel cell for $15.00 (the same battery locally is $21.00, so I saved the shipping charge right there.)

I should get my new battery and light in a few days. (I was suprised that the company didn't charge tax, so I paid a total of $29.95.)

My simple set-up still works well for me: one 20W headlight, 12V gel cell, rear xenon strobe and small rotary switch.

Awesome SeadonKey. Yes that was me and compared to the cheap china blinkies that drill battery is zero trouble. How long does that 12V battery last on the 2 10W bulbs? As soon as the 18V batteries go (est live is 2yrs)...I'm switching to either 12V or 24V battery and adding in all those other goodies that have been off-limits for so long.

LittleBigMan 1.5years is pretty good.

I don't have any numbers yet. I plan to have it mounted this weekend, and have a good idea of battery life by monday. I'll post again when I have more info.

Ya, maybe it woulda died sooner if I had ridden more this year like I should have. Anyway, I got it at Radio Shack, and it was great, but I was sad and hurt to see it go into the trash! Maybe this new one will be a little better, but even if it's not, 9 bucks is hard to beat--heck, those "China blinkies" you mentioned can go for as much as $5 apiece.

While I was at an auto parts store replacing a burned out fuse for my 12v (ain't it great, I can use those flat two-pronged car fuses!) I stumbled on a curious little toy. It was some kind of tacky strobe accessory for your car. They must have been on clearance, they were 85 cents and included two small firecracker-sized strobes with long, independent wires that attached to a central timing circuit about the size of small brownie. (They were called "City Lights" or something.) well, for 85 cents, it was worth a try.

Since I didn't have my strobe shipped to me yet, I hooked it up on the bike. Works well in the dark, but not in daylight. I can't wait to get my big strobe again.

Well, it turns out the yellow xenon strobe I bought online is smaller than my former strobe, and not as bright. But it's still a great attention-getter. It came in the mail yesterday and I hooked it into the system.

One thing I noticed about my homebuilt system is that if I say, "I'll just hook it up such-and-such a way temporarily, then I'll come back and finish the job later," it usually doesn't work that way. Whichever way I hook it up, it will usually stay that way for much longer than I planned, often remaining in an ugly-fied state until the next modification or until something breaks. It won't win any prizes for looks, but it's simple, effective, dependable, easily maintained and cost-effective. Did I mention it works? :D

Hi all. First post on this forum. Thank to all for all the great info. I live in Ga. now but will be moving to Charleston S.C. next month to start my masters degree. I plan on commuting via my Trek 7200. I have looked at several store bought lighting systems but the really good ones(read HID) cost more than my bike. I came across this thread and have followed it up to this point. I have a few question/comments.

First I thought it would be neat and really helpful if those of you accomplished geeks(and you know who you are........Little Big Man, vrkelley, and DCCommuter, etc al) would give a summary of your projects to date to include parts and assembly instruction, and maybe what you would do different if you had to do it over again. This is just a suggestion. I know you guys are probably as bound by time as myself, but it would save new geek-wanna-be's like me from having to try to piece together how you did your system from 32 pages(so far) of intermingled postings.

Secondly. From what I have read so far I want to try to build a system from Optonics Competitive Driving lights (thanks Rainman), Rear amber strobe (you to Little Big Man) and use a cordless drill battery (and finally vrkelley). I have a question regarding using a 24 volt battery. Will it allow me to use more lights if needed, and will it allow for longer burn times, or both.

Lastly, I will be living on a boat at a marina. Are there any concerns you would have regarding corrosion if you were building a system from the ground up?

I looked into this issue a bit, and it turns out that those MXDL torched actually DO use Luxeons. I don't have positive proof, but here is what I found:

1) The actual appearance and size of the LED in the MXDL torches is absolutely identical to Lumileds' 3W emitter, down to the last small details.

2) I searched for competitors' products in the LED arena. Number of competitors who make a large LED like the Luxeon: NONE.

3) The only company getting even close to Lumileds is Japanese Nichia. It looked like a patent dispute was souring things between these two companies, but they have now shaken hands and joined forces. But Nichia can't produce a whopper like Lumileds' 1W, 3W or 5W LEDs - the technology is at this stage a closely guarded secret. If it were easy to make these, we would see the market flooded by knock-offs. We don't.

This begs the question, how to explain the differences you observed?

It turns out that Lumileds have recently improved their range, in both brightness as well as uniformity of color temperature. You must have gotten the new stuff, while the older stuff is still used in those torches.

Perhaps that's true jur, but I'm not totally convinced. I held both LEDs in my hand, side-by-side, and they were similar, but not the same. Maybe the knockoffs were old Lumileds stock, sold to some Chinese manufacturer for cheap. That manufacturer certainly didn't take very good care of them though, because all of the lenses (which were clear as water on the replacements) were scratched and cloudy.

In either case, the warning still stands; if you buy a cheap Chinese knockoff flashlight, expect to get 'seconds' in terms of quality.

You're aware that genuine Luxeons are NOT uniform in color and brightness, but are sorted after production according to color and brightness, given a bin code corresponding to those properties, and then priced accordingly?

Oh yes, I forgot about the scratchy lens. Quite right. Yeah, that muddies the picture again... The thing that was a bit of a clincher for me is the detailed shape of the chip base (hexagonal only for the 3W) and the orientation of the LED chip. I thought that a knock-off might show some deviation. Your idea of a cheap reject batch is a good one.

Anyway, now I'm no longer so sure, I think I will see if I can get a replacement just for the hell of it...

I'm in the process of re-doing my bike's lighting system. It'll be the third time I've done it. I'm using a Luxeon 5W bulb for the headlight. As I get the parts in and start working on it, I'll take pictures and post them.

Don't discount the 3W bulbs completely, I found that using two 3W LEDs was actually a better solution than a single 5W LED. This is mostly because a 5W LED was more than twice as expensive as a single 3W, which meant I could implement a dual-beam 6W headlight for less than a single 5W. Also remember that the 5W LED will get much hotter than a 3W, so you'll need at least 60% more square inches of heatsink.

Post 771 in this thread has a description of my current setup. Post 698 shows pictures of how it is assembled, although the headlight has changed slightly since then. Why don't you read those two posts and then I can answer any questions you have about construction techniques.

You won't get any more power per weight with 24 volts than with 12. The advantage of 12 volts is you can use automotive stuff.

I think the environment that my bike faces is as harsh as a marine environment. I just make sure everything is weatherproofed. If you are really concerned there are a lot of marine-specific 12v devices.

Those are interesting points; I've already got the Luxeon ordered and it's on its way. I am concerned about heat-sinking it; I'm going to experiment with that.

BOOOOOM...............I did it! Thanks to all you guys on the forum I actually managed to put together a light system for my bike. I wanted something really bright primarily because I'm going to be commuting in Charleston, SC where there tends to be a heck of a lot of morning fog and drivers with bad eyesight. I started with 2 PILOT 55 W running lights that I bought from Advance. (40.00). These come with a good wire harness with built in fuse and rocker switch. I then called Zbattery and ordered a HR15-12 (13ah) battery. One note on Zbattery. They are great folks. I spoke with Brian and told him what I needed. He called me back in 5 min. after speaking with their engineer who was out of town on a family emergency and recommended the forementioned battery. The battery, recharger and alligator clips were 57.00 with shipping. If I run two 55 w bulbs........according to the formula DCCommuter posted earlier I should get ...12 times 13=156. 156/110=1.42hours in theory. But in reality half or .71 hrs or about 40 minutes of burn time.
I also ordered the yellow strobe and a couple of MR-16 bulbs (35 watt flood 4700 degree and a yellow one to see if if did any better in the fog).

Well I got everything wired together just after dark and went outside to try it out. I have not mounted the battery yet but plan to put in it a toolbox on a back rack tomorrow. MAN!, It was bright. I could spotlight deer with it. I pulled the car beside the bike for a comparison and the lights on the bike were brighter than the dims on the car. Also they were whiter. The PILOT box the lights came in states that it is HID white beam. I don't think they are HID lights, just HID simulated but man they are bright.

Regarding the tail lights. I was a little underwhelmed with the amber strobe that came today and an optronics red beehive that i picked up from Advance that has a bulb. Also the mr-16s came today and there is no way to replace the existing bulbs in the lights with the ones I ordered because the lense and reflectors on the Pilots are sealed into the housing. The bulbs I ordered online came with the bulb sealed to the the reflectors. If I change bulbs it will have to be just bulbs and not the reflectors. Oh well........... all in all I'm pretty happy. The system did cost a little over $100, but there is no way I would have been able to buy a comparable system for anywhere close to that. I still plan to tinker with the rear lighting. I have been thinking about a 6" diameter strobe like goes on wreakers with the revolving reflector.
Again, thanks to all who have contributed to the thread.

On a side note. I used a socket bar to make a mount for my rear lights. They are stainless steel and therefore will not rust. Also they are strong enough to bend to whatever form you need and still support a considerable amt. of weight. Also I visited a metal recycling yard today, and they had a ton of old bikes. They let me have any accessories off of them I wanted (reflector mounts, reflectors, racks, etc) for free.

The Luxeon datasheets recommend at LEAST 1 square inch per watt, which would be at least 5 square inches for a 5W Luxeon. This is assuming the Luxeon is properly connected to the heatsink with thermal paste or whatever you decide to use. However, for more reliable operation I'd recommend more than 5 square inches, just to be safe.


And Semper... 110 watts of light??? Holy smokes, people are going to think you're a transport truck with your headlights burnt out on one side! How much does your rig weigh?

Sounds like gem-sorting. Are those quality issues then? If so, as a shopper, how can you know what you're actually getting?