New Bike Light Design

mcginty_PB

Hey everyone. I am a road biker and ride quite a bit in the early morning because traffic is much lighter between 4am and 7am. I've been palying around with the luxeon emitters and other types of leds and have come up with visor that attaches to my helmet and uses 32 single "regular" two lead leds. I get better than 1000 lumes out of this thing and 2.5 hours of runtime with my 11.1 volt 2200mAh Lithium polymer battery. I am not trying to market this light to anyone- nor could I. I am just wondering if anyone has heard of a light like this. It seems like everybody is luxeon emitter crazy but those high power leds take quite a bit of bagage to heatsink and focus their beams. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks -P

daveornee

Hey everyone. I am a road biker and ride quite a bit in the early morning because traffic is much lighter between 4am and 7am. I've been palying around with the luxeon emitters and other types of leds and have come up with visor that attaches to my helmet and uses 32 single "regular" two lead leds. I get better than 1000 lumes out of this thing and 2.5 hours of runtime with my 11.1 volt 2200mAh Lithium polymer battery. I am not trying to market this light to anyone- nor could I. I am just wondering if anyone has heard of a light like this. It seems like everybody is luxeon emitter crazy but those high power leds take quite a bit of bagage to heatsink and focus their beams. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks -P
http://www.zefox.net/~bob/bicycle/
is one person I know. His approach is to get efficiency and proper power and voltage arrangement to run off stock bicycle generators (hub or sidewall). His approach makes good use of the DIODE portion of the LED to make efficient use of the power. His packaging is not desireable to me, but I think that this area of illumination can be developed in at least 3 or 4 practical packaging:
Helmet mount with rechargeble/replaceable batteries
Bar mount with battery pack mountable on top tube or water bottle mount
Fork mount to go with front hub generator
Bar mount all in one unit...
There are many applications out there. Brevet riders, commuters, cyclist out for exercise, etc.
Packaging, pricing, light output/pattern, replacement/augmenting existing lights... all have some determination as too what application(s) you are addressing.

mcginty_PB

Do you sell spokes and such on Ebay? I think I've bought stuff from you there?
Thanks for the reply and the link.

daveornee

Do you sell spokes and such on Ebay? I think I've bought stuff from you there?
Thanks for the reply and the link.
Thank you. Yes, I package Sapim Race spokes with nipples for people who want to build wheels. I just started packaging Sapim Black Race 14/15 DB spokes with Black brass Polyax nipples too.
Keep us posted on you lighting solution(s).
Pictures of packaging and lighting patterns are always of interest.
Comparisons to commecial products are interesting to some of us as well.
Techical details, features, and benifits will garner even more looks.

Slugster438

... I've been playing around with the luxeon emitters and other types of leds and have come up with visor that attaches to my helmet and uses 32 single "regular" two lead leds. .... I am just wondering if anyone has heard of a light like this. .... -PFoxfury has a couple models that sound like they'd be similar:
http://www.foxfury.com/products/index.htm

There are cheap Chinese verisons of multi-led headlamps out there also.
Not quite like the foxfury, but milti-T1-3/4 led, anyway:
Here is one place (http://store.advancedmart.com/keledli.html),
here is another (http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/flashlights-head-lamps-c-76_82.html),
here is a place that sells LED strip lights (http://www.theledlight.com/), some are even flexible and they sell bare Cree LEDs too (Cree is the newest type of high-output LED, it's about one-fourth more efficient {in terms of lumens per watt} than Luxeons and Nichias).

You can also get more info on light building/modding at the candlepower forums (http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/).
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The usual problem with using plain LEDs (such as T-1 or T-1-3/4) is that the focusing is not very effective, They spread the light out in a donut shape beam so you can't ever get much range out of them. If you use a lot of them, you get a very broad smooth light, but it doesn't cast very far at all. The LEDs that can cast light far all have lenses on the front of them.

Also keep in mind: LEDs efficiency drops off radically as the output goes up. You get lots better energy efficiency by running a 3- or 5-watt high-output LED at only .5 or 1 watt; just because its rated for 5 watts doesn't mean you have to drive 5 watts through it. Unlike light bulbs, LEDs are the same color at any current that will run them.

Other than that, I can't help you.
~

mcginty_PB

Here's a photo of the working headlight I was telling you guys about when I started this post. As you can see from the photos the beam is very broad- it's almost a flood light! It's pretty bright though. I am running it off a buckpuck with internal current adjustment dialed to the correct current for the leds I'm running. The battery is 2200mAh 11.1 volt Lipoly. The light looks bulky and is a bit heavier than the Luxeon lights I've built in the past.
This light might actually be a good one for some mountain bikers on a budget as it lights up everything in front of you and was also pretty cheap too. I spent about $100 and have enough leds and an extra battery to build a second light.
I'm going to refine the visor design a bit and add a couple more leds as my buckpuck has plenty of room to grow into this application.
As for comments, I know it looks clunky so don't knock my first effort.

mcginty_PB

Oops. The files were too big the first time I tried. So here are the downsized photos.

ryanspeer

That's freakin' awesome. You'd probably have oncoming traffic flashing their bright's at you!

mcginty_PB

That's freakin' awesome. You'd probably have oncoming traffic flashing their bright's at you!
Not probably- Definitely. I can't look at this light. The other led headlights I've built actually make traffic slow down (I guess so as to get a better look at the aliens inside the approaching UFO). I try to be courtious and turn the beam away from them so as to not develope ill will. I moved from GA to East TN and found a hugh drop in the number of redneck driver's feigned attempts to kill me while I was riding greatly declined so I don't want to piss anybody off and screw that situation up.

Thanks for the reply.