Group riding can be a bit dangerous if the pace is fast and riders don’t notice a slowing in the front of the pack. [WyoJustin] designed a brake light system for cyclists to try and remedy this issue. LEDs are mounted in the end caps of the handlebars on a road bike. When an accelerometer senses the bike slowing down the LEDs light up, warning those behind you that you’re slowing down.
The system is made to be portable, as a lot of serious riders have multiple bikes. To make this happen, all of the electronics are housed in the handlebar tubing for easy transfer. This includes an accelerometer with built in voltage regulator, an Arduino to control everything, and a battery. Take a look at the brake lights in action after the break.
Most of the bike lights we see are for the front of the machine, but this backward-facing package is a clean and easy solution we can get behind (safely).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-e05Un4-jA]
Nice, also it’s a good idea to use a female subject in hack videos. Hackers should do this more often.
There’s something on the market that uses an accelerometer as a rear cycle brake light. It also wireless left/right indicator LED clusters and it can be used as a power bank to recharge your ipod, psp, etc via USB.
It’s called the Spooklight. Ah right, previous poster beat me to it.
@Haku
…kinda like a low-pass filter, which can be implemented with a capacitor. Yeah, yeah. Shame on us.
And all that stuff about uneven terrain just shows us how easier it would be to use RPM… unless of course one want’s the functionality while drifting.
@Samuel:
not just drifting, it could also warn you against sudden loss of gravity.
50 cents more in parts (a piezo) and a low quality voice sample later: “warning, loss in gravity. if you are not in space, you might be falling down a cliff”
Brilliant, now we just need a hack that stops these tossers riding on the pavements, through light on red etc. etc.
@Slacker: it’s in development, ETA: when ALL car drivers actually take notice of you and don’t cut you up etc. when you’re riding correctly.
I feel safer on pavements late at night (past 1-2am) especially Friday/Saturday when the boy racer chavs are racing around like they own the roads because there’s hardly anyone around.
I don’t run red lights though, that’s just asking for a hospital/morgue visit.
I’ve used non-contact infrared temperature sensing parts on a lot of projects. If inflating the price of the project $10 is acceptable, it seems you could solve a lot of the problems mentioned here by having a clip on part near the wheel rim (or brake disc if so equipped). The mass of the wheel is small enough that if you tap the brakes there will be a very sudden increase in temperature, well within the precision of most low cost sensors. It seems a fairly generic solution to detect _braking_ (not only deceleration, which is important as previously mentioned). Illuminating the LEDs at a positive temperature gradient of say, 1 degree per second would probably do the trick.