home made bike lights

[mcginty_PB]

i did a search for bike lights here and turned up nothing on building my own bike light. i thought i would start this thread for those of us who have been experimenting with building our own bike lights in order to help other people like me who want $600 light performance for a little less.

if you have built your own light please post some photos here with tips you found that work and where you bought your supplies to build your light.

the most common home made bike light i have seen is built around the luxeon leds which can be very expensive. i purchaced a couple of prolights from and ebay seller in hongkong and they have performed very well. the prolights are very efficient but require heat sinking.
i've just recently built a light that uses plain leds and doesn't require the heat sinking the high power leds require and it produces a great light for riding.

www.theledlight.com and www.ledsupply.com are two websites that i have found supplies like the buckpuck constant current regulators that drive my leds and the parabolic reflectors that are needed to form the beam on the high power luxeon leds.

www.nitroplanes.com is a great source for lithium polymer batteries which are light as air compared to nickle medal hydride batteries.

 

[Timmer]

I've built a couple of halogen lights, 20, 50 watt versions. Used a mr-16 light and a cordless drill battery that I allready had. That battery is heavy but I'm not concerned w/ weight. It goes on my commuter and the batt. goes in the trunk and I run wires under the tubes up to the handlebar. I like to keep it simple the 20 watt gives me all the light I need and the battery last about 1.5 hrs. Long enuf for my commute. I've also wired a taillight to the same batt. It's a LED light like the ones made for big trucks, really bright. I might put a flasher on the tailight but can't find one that flashes erracticly(spell). Thought about making a HID light but those are more money than I'm willing to spend. Sorry no pics don't have a digital camera.

 

[9.8mps2]

Excellent . I too have done a build up on led's and am about to start on the 2nd generation. My needs are different - use will be for marathon canoe racing, so we need to get two 9 hr nites out of our systems. We have to pack all our gear except ice & water so weight is paramount . I should have a few emitters ( 3W Luxeon III's, 5 W K2's) and a 1000 mA buck current source coming today from http://www.luxeonstar.com/index.php .I have a few lenses coming as well, I am anxious to eval the 5 X 20 degree lens .
My power source will be a stick of 3 17AH Saft Li's ( non rechargable) in series.
My 1st gen was two very modified/ chopped up/ rewired Mag lite chassis straight wired to plain old alkalines w/ Mag led replacements - worked fine,but the V drop ater two hours was disappointing.
I am out in the sticks and am reluctant to do much riding after dark ( read : beer thirty), but should I ,my first boat racing light ( turbocat 5W ) will be reassigned to it's original purpose.
A lot of boats run the HID's , but as I am childless I lack the collateral to plop down on one of those systems. They do bear a striking resemblance to the sun coming own the river.
Thanks for the thread, I'll shoot some evals post top sekrit testing ...
ps: the above source give some very doable prices - 3 to 8 bucks for the emitters, ~ 20 for the regulator, 3 - 5 bucks for lens / holders.

 

[j.r.hawkins]

I have quite a neat one I built from a 12-15V Luxeon 3W LED MR16 downlight. I built a voltage regulator for it from a **** Smith Electronics voltage regulator kit so as not to fry it after charging the couple of REALLY old 7.2V 1700mAh battery packs from my R/C car racing days that I use wired in series to power it. The regulator provides high and low-beam settings using a three-pole toggle switch.

All up it cost me about AU$55 to put together not including charger and batteries that I already had, and it's about the equivalent of a 15W halogen. Runs for 5 hours or more no sweat. The guys at the LBS were amazed by the performance.

I'd like the beam to be a little more tightly focussed and may rework it with a better collimator, but during the winter months here I now almost never have to worry about cars pulling out in front of me and I can see the bike trails really well even at 30-40km/hr.

I'll post some pics when I can get the wireless networking working.

 

[geo8rge]

FWIW, I use a maglite 3W LED held to my handle bars with 2 hose clamps.

These replacement lenses work:
http://www.flashlightlens.com/cgi-bin/ccp51/cp-app.cgi

In the winter a battery pack you held inside your cloths would be really usefull.

If maglite is not enough for you:
http://flashlightreviews.com/

IMO, a flashlight is really nice as it is multi purpose, and easy to remove. They also sell purpose built flashlight mounts.

 

[mcginty_PB]

FWIW, I use a maglite 3W LED held to my handle bars with 2 hose clamps.

These replacement lenses work:
http://www.flashlightlens.com/cgi-bin/ccp51/cp-app.cgi

In the winter a battery pack you held inside your cloths would be really usefull.

If maglite is not enough for you:
http://flashlightreviews.com/

IMO, a flashlight is really nice as it is multi purpose, and easy to remove. They also sell purpose built flashlight mounts.

I tried that too with a smaller incadescent mini mag. It kept slipping and shifting with each bump and I could only see where my bike was going. I soon built a handlebar mounted led light which was an improvement but the best thing I ever did in bike light buliding was to stick the light on my helmet. If you ever try a helmet mount light you'll never bother with handlebar mounted lights again.

 

[9.8mps2]

You're right there. In addition to the above rigs for my racing canoe, I use a princeton tec EOS . Simple, single 1 W regulated, waterproof (very), single strap so if you have some decent frontal lobe area it will fit on forehead beneath helmet. You could use strap to fix to bars, stem, or steering head if you wanted.Slim battery compartment (AAA) - use lithiums for good cold weather operation. I think about 50 bills. There are cheapos , this one's the best balance of quality and value. One year, several swims, no probs.

 

[j.r.hawkins]

My concern with helmet-mounted anythings is that the helmet is designed to do a particular job, and in a cranial impact where the helmet makes the difference between surviving or not, all of the attachments I've seen are likely to get knocked into the gaps and penetrate the wearer's skull, or get broken off and penetrate an eye in the case of a stalk-mounted mirror I saw.

I suppose you could make the argument that a head-mounted light means you're more able to avoid a collision or fall in the first place, but the thought still bothers me.

 

[9.8mps2]

Yessir, but since riding at night carries a ten fold greater likelihood for a mishap, why bother with a helmet at all if risk factors dont affect you ? ( I ain't trying to be a rabble rouser or helmet pot stirrer, but we are giving all viewpoints here. )And I do have a good point - no one notices with my helmet on though

 

[Timmer]

Anyone know where I could get a flasher to wire into a homemade taillight? I know about automotive flashers but am looking to get something that flashes like a regular bicycle taillight, 3 fast blinks gap 3 fast like that. Thanks

 

[9.8mps2]

Anyone know where I could get a flasher to wire into a homemade taillight? I know about automotive flashers but am looking to get something that flashes like a regular bicycle taillight, 3 fast blinks gap 3 fast like that. Thanks

I would guess you could get a flashing led tail for less than adding a flasher to your built up one.

 

[mcginty_PB]

My concern with helmet-mounted anythings is that the helmet is designed to do a particular job, and in a cranial impact where the helmet makes the difference between surviving or not, all of the attachments I've seen are likely to get knocked into the gaps and penetrate the wearer's skull, or get broken off and penetrate an eye in the case of a stalk-mounted mirror I saw.

I suppose you could make the argument that a head-mounted light means you're more able to avoid a collision or fall in the first place, but the thought still bothers me.

You might have a point about the penetrating affects of helmet mounted accessories and I hve thought of this too. I'm currently making a light that is both nright and an extension of the front half of the helmet to avoid problems with wind resistance, globe peircing trauma, unavoidable unintentional frontal lobotomy etc. I ought to have some photos up here in a couple of days.

 

[hlowtide]

If you like to put LED lights on your bicycle I suggest you go to http://www.niceledlights.com/ . They have wonderful LED lights for bicycle.

 

[alienator]

Originally Posted by hlowtide .

If you like to put LED lights on your bicycle I suggest you go to http://www.niceledlights.com/ . They have wonderful LED lights for bicycle.

Well, if you're very first post is going to be all about hawking someone's lights, you ought to make clear whether or not your affiliated with the company or friends or family with folks that work there. It is unlikely thought that anyone will give Nice LED Lights any consideration since their is absolutely no information at the link or the links at that website that give any information. It looks like a failed SPAM attempt.

 

[charliebrown90]

Will you tell me some HID lights for the motorbikes?

_________________________________
bicycles helmets

 

[alienator]

Originally Posted by charliebrown90 .

Will you tell me some HID lights for the motorbikes?

_________________________________
bicycles helmets

Here's a good idea: go to a store that sells motorbikes, especially since motorcycles (i.e., motorbikes) tend to come with lights on them.

 

[whuppingboy]

I had a play around a year ago with some mega bright leds, i work in the amusement industry and a guy came in with some high power leds, thay ran on 9v batteries which i velcroed to the leds.
They were excellent for being seen by other road users but the beam was too spread and didn't light up the way.
The battery life was ok too.
May have another go soon after reading this thread.
Nice..

 

[jojo123]

If you like to put LED lights on your bicycle I suggest you go to ENELTEC . They have wonderful LED lights.