Wow that is bright. Well done.

granted they would need to be focused, but what’s the hold-up on replacing car headlights with these? they would be more reliable than a standard or xenon bulb and use less power.

I almost hit a deer on a trail ride at night goin 25 mph because my light wasn’t bright enough! This is sick!

Yeah… I wanna make a flashlight like this with a lithium polymer battery!
With the 6 AH cell from sparkfun, 8 Luxeon Rebel LEDs would last for half an hour. Not bad if I build a car charger into it and keep it in my car. It would be crazy bright too! about $90 in LEDS though!
-taylor

hmmm “its to dark i can’t see a thing” *turns light on* “AHHH too bright can’t see a thing”
btw nice

Totally cool, but somehow I don’t think my hub dynamo will power this…

if that thing gets any brighter he’ll be able to peel paint with the damn thing. wouldn’t mind have a few mounted on my bumpers, some in back for tailgaters who leave their brights on and some in front for… well seeing stuff.

Too bright? I say mount a 1kw metal halide on the thing. Good luck powering it though! 70,000+ lumens do not come easily…

@daddystop…i was thinking the same thing, like some kind of alternator

If you think this is a high power light, then have a look at this thing (not mine):
http://fotos.mtb-news.de/photosets/view/13254

“insipid melon: as head lights? cite models please. the only ones i’ve seen are the audis with the accent strip underneath the actual head light.”
I am not a car person and if I were I still don’t know why you’d expect me to be able to identify cars which I am complaining blind me at night when I look at them. :p

But there are enough of them in Abq. that I usually run into at least a few on night outings, and the cop cars are switching over to LED headlights as well. (they also have LED siren strips).

I think with a little work you could make a nice pair of rally-style lights, and if you design it right you could have an adjustable throw pattern. Never hurts to be able to see further driving on country roads this time of year.

@Insipid Melon

I’m pretty sure what you’re thinking of are HID lamps. very bright and (usually) focused.

What an awesome project! This is so well done not to mention simple! This is the kind of project where necessity meets fun. You know you’ve got to feel like a bad ass when your driving down the street and your blinding oncoming cars with your bike light! GJ on this project!

Mommy says: “Don’t look directly to the sun or your bike light.”

Actually, there is a very high power bike generator you can get – rollergen. You can engage it when convenient (going downhill) and disengage it otherwise. Puts out 30W.

I really like this write-up

Anyone know where I can get those lenses? that’s the only part of the build I don’t know where to source.

Actually the maker doesn’t mention anything about hunting. He just notes that eyes of animals and reflectors shine back from hundreds of meters away as shiny spots and that many animals let you get close because they dont seem to see the people behind the light, they just stop to wonder the bright light.

@twistedsymphony:

Lenses can be found at:
http://www.ledil.fi/
http://www.led-tech.de/

@courtney, @daddystop:
see my comment @rob and the link i posted http://www.led-treiber.de/html/dynamo-treiber.html#LED-Standlicht
bottle dynamos (afixed to the fork, with a little plastic wheel riding at the rim of your wheel) are cheap in europe, but i’ve seen them even in the u.s. for under $10.

usually, they are looked down upon, because they usually power a dim 2.4 watt halogen bulb, that goes off as soon as you stop and constantly flickers.
with leds, it is a different story, the guy above claims 3 leds in series with 200-250mA. that would be about 150 lumen for the front light without any battery! he also added some caps so you can stop without the light turning off.

other people claim at least 3w: http://www.pilom.com/BicycleElectronics/Dynamo.htm
his homepage has some interesting generator projects: http://www.pilom.com/BicycleElectronics/BicycleElectronics.htm

and if you’ve never seen a bottle dynamo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_dynamo

1.) The new Prius has optional LED headlights, joining the ranks of the Escalade Premium and Audi R8.

2.) Optics for Cree and Philips LEDs can be found on ledsupply.com or futureelectronics.com.

3.) From the picture, it appears that only the blue hue spot is from the LED headlight. The intense light directly in front of the bike is NOT from the LEDs.

4.) Anyone else severely scared of how he wired the LEDs? There is no protection from the leads shorting on the heatsink… Not that it really matters THAT much, as a short to ground just means the LEDs after the short go out. But, mounted on a bike for offroad travel, I’d personally insulate the connections.

@emmaarmstrong – shoot, now i need brights, lowbeam, and trail lights?
but seriously, i read some debates on the effectiveness of different colors (blue vs red debate) and what i got out of it so far is this: rods are blue sensitive but not red sensitive,
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/bright.html#c4 you see a blue led trail light with your rods and a red light with your cones.
so my understanding is: if you want a really bright trail light, make it as far red as possible, your cones will pick it up but it won’t spoil your rods. if you want some smaller illumination, make it blue, your rods will pick it up but it won’t saturate them as easily as an (almost)-full spectrum white phosphor led.
unfortunately, i really don’t like having a bright red light on the front;)

@tantris – sorry, the post by emmaarmstrong was me, the troubles of shared computers and not watching when you click submit! but to answer your thoughts..

Checkout http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/xzMisc/Color/Media/EyeSpectralAbsorption.png also, makes the differences a bit more obvious but…

Yes, to some extent a smaller quantity of blue would indeed make sense, but for the fact that we have bugger all blue receptors (something like 2% of total, and mostly scattered all over the retina) makes focusing on things illuminated in blue-only light much more difficult than red-only apparently.

Our main problem is that we can’t really control the levels of brightness, one second it might be reflecting off white limestone, the next off dark soil. Because of this we tend to prepare for the worst case (dark soil in a dark wood maybe) and so we just blast out a blue light to match that, but this “smaller” illumination (so as not to bleach the rods) needs to be carefully controlled, whereas red doesn’t and provides better focusing (or rather resolution) due to between 50 and 75% of your cones being red.

Did any of that make sense? It’s 3AM here!

Maybe a combination of red and lower intensity blue? Red is fairly odd to ride with. But either are theoretically better than white. Worth a test, if you get spare time/LEDs. I’m currently tracking down some 3W reds and blues to test them both out.

I doubt if I’d like to see THAT bright at night. Lots of details, kinda scary.

@james: so, for the trail light a bright red spot in front of you and blue sidespill?
but i doubt, that i will build that anytime soon. i have an unfinished road-compatible white led light, and that has priority.

if anyone needs more reflector links: for the bar shaped part i’m thinking of either this one http://dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1919 or that one http://kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=1788
i got both, they are o.k. i glued reflective aluminum tape to the back of the glass reflector, which helped with wasted back spill and made them somehow “softer”.

@ Wwhat

The BMW Xenons have an auto-leveling system which directs the headlights down when the suspension angle changes so you don’t blind other drivers. They’ve been doing this since ’97 and it’s really nothing more than a fixed lever arm which signals a servo motor. Perhaps something that could be added to this to keep from blinding others and the added benefit of having light stay where you’re biking, even over uneven terrain…

@Wwhat – These lights are great for night riding off-road, they’re never designed to be used on-road. Certainly nowhere in the UK is it illegal to disturb animals overnight, and we don’t really have many to disturb. For that matter, the number of night-riding MTBers are VERY low – it’s hardly a massive problem. HIDs are used as a fairly “normal” light for night riding currently, and are similarly bright to this.

I’m not sure why you find it such a problem to be honest – if it’s on road then the rider is being stupid using high-brightness lights on the road (though some would say it’s about the only way of getting drivers to realise you’re there) and in the woods there are bugger all people about and no-one to upset.

To the people talking about LED car headlights, there’s plenty of cars with LED rear lights, and some with LED sidelights, but only the Audi R8 has LED headlights. Although there’s many with bi-xenon as standard or an option.

I’m BLIND! That would be sweet to have. Good Post!

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