Lights

Brendan Halpin said:

The Kinetics site suggests that you can wire the rear light to the
Lumotec Oval Senso (rather than to the dynamo) and have the rear
light switched as well. It that true?

It seems a very sensible thing to be able to do, but I can't see a
simple way to do it and still have the rear light in parallel...

I have an oval (not a senso) and it looks like the contacts for the
rear light come directly off the contacts for the front. So unless the
switch mechanism is before the main body of the lamp, the answer is no.
Otherwise it is yes.

Hope this helps ;-)

...d

Quoted message said:

Brendan
--
Brendan Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Ireland
Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-338562; Room F2-025 x 3147
[email hidden] http://www.ul.ie/sociology/brendan.halpin.html

Brendan Halpin said:

The Kinetics site suggests that you can wire the rear light to the
Lumotec Oval Senso (rather than to the dynamo) and have the rear
light switched as well. It that true?

It seems a very sensible thing to be able to do, but I can't see a
simple way to do it and still have the rear light in parallel...

That's what our 3 various Oval Senso Plus setups have, so it does work :-)

There are two sets of contacts on the front underside of the mounting
stalk on the front lamp, the forward ones are current and the rear two
are ground (IIRC, it does tell you for sure in the instructions).
If you're running off a dynohub (I guess you are with the senso version)
then you'll have a captive lead to the dynamo independent of these
contacts. You can either connect the currents and grounds of front and
rear lamp terminals together (what our recumbents have), or just connect
the current terminals together and ground the rear lamp against the
frame (remember that paint and plastic rack coatings aren't great
conductors). That's what Roos' commuter bike has as of last weekend.

The 'bents came with the lamps and SONs pre-installed by two different
companies (Nazca and HP Velotechnik, Dutch and German so should know
about dynamos!) and that was how they were set up so if it's wrong I'm
not to blame. I'm pretty sure it isn't wrong though...

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

David Martin said:

I have an oval (not a senso) and it looks like the contacts for the
rear light come directly off the contacts for the front. So unless the
switch mechanism is before the main body of the lamp, the answer is no.
Otherwise it is yes.

That exactly mirrors my thought processes last night, while
fiddling with my oval with a multimeter and various other tools in
an attempt to find out why it no longer works...[1]

But it would be quite a good thing to have the contacts for the
back light downstream of the switch, though that would make for
more substantial physical differences between the senso and
non-senso models.

Brendan

[1] Bad contacts probably, but I can no longer improve the situation
by pulling and poking.
--

Brendan Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Ireland
Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-338562; Room F2-025 x 3147
[email hidden] http://www.ul.ie/sociology/brendan.halpin.html

Brendan Halpin said:

The Kinetics site suggests that you can wire the rear light to the
Lumotec Oval Senso (rather than to the dynamo) and have the rear
light switched as well. It that true?

Yes this is possible as I have set up a bike this way. There are
seperate connections for the dynamo and rear light. This was a few
years ago mind, so it could have changed since then.

Robin

Brendan Halpin said:

The Kinetics site suggests that you can wire the rear light to the
Lumotec Oval Senso (rather than to the dynamo) and have the rear
light switched as well. It that true?

It seems a very sensible thing to be able to do, but I can't see a
simple way to do it and still have the rear light in parallel...

Read the maker's instructions at:
http://www.bumm.de/index-e.html

They imply it works; there are contacts on the lamp for attaching the tail
lamp, and a wire to attach to the generator (dynamo). Its not written in
the clearest of language, but made sense to me.

--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/

Brendan Halpin said:

The Kinetics site suggests that you can wire the rear light to the
Lumotec Oval Senso (rather than to the dynamo) and have the rear
light switched as well. It that true?

Yes in *must* - it's a legal requirement in Germany that the front and
rear lights 'may be only together switchable' (StVZO, § 67 Absatz 9),
so BuM kit must comply.
(I also tested mine last night, and that is indeed the case, both 'on'
and 'S' on the switch sends power to the rear light terminals)

Peter Clinch said:

Brendan Halpin said:

The Kinetics site suggests that you can wire the rear light to the
Lumotec Oval Senso (rather than to the dynamo) and have the rear
light switched as well. It that true?

It seems a very sensible thing to be able to do, but I can't see a
simple way to do it and still have the rear light in parallel...

That's what our 3 various Oval Senso Plus setups have, so it does work :-)

I've just ordered one. Rim and spokes have arrived,
bike-components.de tell me my SON is in the post.

Funny bunch those Germans; some of their online bike stuff is very
good value (SON for EUR 159 including postage, Senso Plus for EUR35
compared with GPB44 in the UK online stores), but several of the
online shops do not accept credit cards! I had to do a bank
transfer to get my SON from bike-components.de, and got through
several screens of half-understood German on another site in an
attempt to buy the Senso Plus only to get their IBAN number and
other details instead of the familiar "Visa or Mastercard"
question.

In the end I got the light for EUR 35.07 from a 21st century French
site (www.gillesberthoud.fr).

Regards,

Brendan
--
Brendan Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Ireland
Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-338562; Room F2-025 x 3147
[email hidden] http://www.ul.ie/sociology/brendan.halpin.html

Brendan Halpin said:

Funny bunch those Germans; some of their online bike stuff is very
good value (SON for EUR 159 including postage, Senso Plus for EUR35
compared with GPB44 in the UK online stores), but several of the
online shops do not accept credit cards!

Aren't they more inclined to operate COD? Whenever I've ordered stuff
from germany, it seems they almost expect COD, but I've always assumed
it would just go very wrong if I were to propose that for a delivery
to the UK.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

Ian Smith said:

Brendan Halpin said:

Funny bunch those Germans; some of their online bike stuff is very
good value (SON for EUR 159 including postage, Senso Plus for EUR35
compared with GPB44 in the UK online stores), but several of the
online shops do not accept credit cards!

Aren't they more inclined to operate COD?

It may well have been one of the options, as there was more than
one (cheque, show up in person, plus they have accounts in several
countries such as France and Austria to avoid international
charges). I can't tell you if COD was an option because on German
websites I'm effectively partially sighted :-)

I think it a cultural thing -- credit cards are for the decadent
rich, while smoking is good for you.

Brendan
--
Brendan Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Ireland
Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-338562; Room F2-025 x 3147
[email hidden] http://www.ul.ie/sociology/brendan.halpin.html