Brompton and hub dynamo

Clive George said:

How hard is it to fit a SON to a brompton? What does it do to the folding? Where did you get
yours from?

In my case, I got it from Kinetics. It was very easy to fit: I 'phoned up Ben and told him what I
wanted and he built the wheel for me, I then called in and left him to mount it all up while I
played on his demo bikes!

I believe the forks need spreading a smidgeon to get it in, but nothing too radical and it doesn't
really affect the fold at all, as long as you're only using a front light. If you wire in a back
light you'll have to think about it a bit more if you have an L or C, but I think if you put the
lamp where the rear reflector mounts it should be okay. On a T it should be less of an issue, but do
think about the wiring routing and how it will fold before you go ahead. I just use an LED unit
mounted at the top of the seatpost.

Only problems I've had have been the mount for the front light combined with the Brompton front
pannier. If you don't use the Brom pannier it's a non issue, but if you do *and* you want a
standlight then there's a problem getting the lamp to fit in the space with typical brackets, and a
bit of bending is required. First attempt used a slightly bent standard bracket, but it snapped from
fatigue (I live on a rough lane on a hill, so the bike gets plenty of vibration for the last 100m of
every trip), as did its replacement. Ben then provided a bracket designed to fit around cantis which
I surgically altered with a file, and that one has (touch formica) been fine. But that's the light:
the SON itself has been completely trouble free.

Ben's done a few now, I think: I'd give him a call and have a chat about it.

HTH, Pete.
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email hidden]
dundee.ac.uk~pjclinchOpen ↗

Clive George said:

This question is mainly aimed at Peter Clinch, but I thought I'd ask in public.

How hard is it to fit a SON to a brompton? What does it do to the folding? Where did you get
yours from?

Related point. A BromSON, geared for the smaler wheels and narrowed to fit the front forks, has long
been rumoured but I haven't heard anything for a while.

Peter

Peter Amey said:

Related point. A BromSON, geared for the smaler wheels and narrowed to fit the front forks, has
long been rumoured but I haven't heard anything for a while.

Though note that the SON comes in two flavours as it is IIRC, and you'll want the one for
smaller wheels.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email hidden]
dundee.ac.uk~pjclinchOpen ↗