8.18: Yet another homebrew biking light
Description
This article is from the Misc Bicycles FAQs, by various authors.
8.18: Yet another homebrew biking light
From: michael.szelong@sunwest2.west.sun.com (Mike Szelong -District Manager)
I cooked up a homebrew that was the hit of a ride last week. I took a
Malibu light replacement (around $8, I think at Home Depot), the kind
that is used in the yard to light up a path, and wired it to an old
nicad battery- 12v that came from a laptop computer.
The battery is a little large, about 4x5x2 inches but it powers the 12
volt 15 watt light brightly for over 2 hours and over 3 before its
dead. The night suns on the ride had two lamps and more adjustability
but this setup was competitive. I believe that there are smaller
output Malibu replacements that are around 7 or 8 watts, suitable for
smaller battery packs.
The Malibu lamp replacement is a reflector/lens that has two spade
terminals and two screw terminals on the back. I took a piece of sheet
metal, (a slot cover from a PC) and drilled two holes in it to match
the screw locations with one being a larger size than the other. I
then found a plastic insulator (like the kind used to mount a power
transitor to sheetmetal) and used it to isolate the one terminal from
the sheet metal. I secured the lamp to the sheetmetal with the screws
provided and bent the sheetmetal 90 degrees and duct taped the sheet
metal to my handlebar stem. You could easily use a hose clamp, I
didn't have the right size handy.
- insulator
| /
| _ _
|===================== ====| |=====
^ ^
| |
Holes---------|
____--------------------____
/ \
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
| \___________/
| X _ X _
|=====================X====|X|=====
X X
= = = =
^ ^
| |
Screws--------|
The two screw terminals also have spade connectors which I used to connect it
to the battery.
The Malibu light normally throws a horizontal beam, but with the way I attached
it, it threw a predominately vertical beam which was great in the climbs and
especially for fast downhill riding. I suppose if you were clever you could
make it rotate 90 degrees depending on the type of riding you do.
All told, about a half hour of work and less than 10 bucks without the battery.
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