Comments on: CCFL bike wheel lights

By: Internet Gun

Internet Gun — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:50:43 +0000

I was dippin down the street one day with these 2 sets of christmas lights on my bike and I got pulled over. Are you on probation or parole? No. Do you have any drugs, weapons or paraphernalia on you? No. Then you won’t mind if I look? I never consent to searches, but if you have the right to search me, I won’t resist… Usually they will just go on their way or write you a ticket for what they already caught you doing. I got a ticket for not having a headlight on a bike once, and it was a correctable offense, go to CHP station for free sign off on correction shit. I didn’t even bring my bike, just the light.

By: kokoye_lee

kokoye_lee — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 10:31:34 +0000

i have a fun bike, too, and i put some lights on the spokes. but i use a UPS battery, a 12-volt, 7.2 Ampere-Hour maintenance-free battery to power them. try to see some pictures at http://www.picturetrail.com.

user: kokoye_lee

anyway, thanks for having this site. cool….

biker from iloilo city, philippines :-)

By: Emanuel

Emanuel — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:28:40 +0000

I KNOW what would make it a fantastic hack for the hall of fame!

a baseball card hitting against the wheel. what a CRAZY concept, making it sound like it has a motor or something.

scary kinda thinking about it. it would be the hack of the month!

but on a serious note, I would not mind seeing this flash on and off while in high speed, may lead to people having seizures or something.

good thing bush is not going to be president for long, because he may declare that a weapon of mass destruction.

By: pete

pete — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:12:49 +0000

nothing personal but its not much of a hack
a ccfl on a wheel
i realy liked the innovation with the pov wheel on a prev post, this was an alright idea but expand on it, add more ccfls, maybe a micro controller and accelerometer…etc

By: Emanuel

Emanuel — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:59:47 +0000

Well after some quick googling, this seemed like the most likely solution.Only issue I see is mounting it, but if you put the magnets on the stationary parts of the bike that support the wheel. that should do it.
but anyways here are the links, they are all about the same product but the some have better images, you can look at it from different points of view.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/10/reelight-magnet.html

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2007/03/15/reelight-bike-lights-powered-by-magnetic-induction/

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/09/reelight_reliab.php#perma

http://www.crunchgear.com/2006/09/14/electrodynamic-bike-light-cuts-down-on-batteries/

tell me what you think of this, seems do-able.

By: depotdevoid

depotdevoid — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:58:39 +0000

Emanuel,

That’s a good idea. I don’t like the idea of buying batteries for it all the time, this was just a quick hack to make something awesome. How would you go about it? You’d have to find a way to set that up though.

Do you think you could set up an arrary of permanent magnets mounted on the frame, where the wheel actually attaches, and them add coils to the spokes? I’m no expert at turbines, but it seems like that should work. You could then either set that up to charge a battery pack or run the output through a voltage regulator for a maximum of 12 volts plugged directly to the voltage step up board.

Of course, a simpler solution (that might actually be lighter weight in the long run) would be to wire this up for 10 AAA’s instead of 8 AA’s and use rechargeable 1.2 volt batteries instead.

-depotdevoid

By: Emanuel

Emanuel — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:33:03 +0000

personally, I would like to see it powered by the user when he is in motion.

I think it would be a better hack that way. that way you don’t have to keep re-buying batteries just for when your riding your bike

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:28:34 +0000

Do you ever take that thing off any sweet jumps?

By: Jesse

Jesse — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:35:44 +0000

usually that’s limited to mimicking police. In any case, if all you worry about is how you’re going to get into trouble, you’ll never get anything done.

solder first ask questions later ;)

By: giskard

giskard — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:26:30 +0000

check your local laws before doing something like this – many jurisdictions ban vehicles from having strange lights, or restrict which colours are legal.

By: depotdevoid

depotdevoid — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 03:39:55 +0000

macegr,
Those aren’t “EL” they are actually the exact same CCFL lights I used for this. But man, the price is fantastic!

By: macegr

macegr — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:48:21 +0000

These might be useful for this idea. I noticed Eric had green and red ones earlier, they probably sold out but Eric can probably restock on request. They’re EL instead of CCFL, might not be as bright. http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/illuminations-el-light-sources-c-32_30.html

By: depotdevoid

depotdevoid — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:35:38 +0000

Thanks for picking up my instructable, I’m glad you liked it!

By the way, I didn’t just use a bare CCFL, this is one of the computer case lights, so it’s encased in an acrylic tube. I know they’re still fairly fragile, but it’s a lot better this way than just the unprotected CCFL.

By: Man On Fire

Man On Fire — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 01:46:17 +0000

one could also use a small battery powered tesla coil to light the tubes. wireless power transmission ftw.