DIY Friday: High-Powered Mountainbike Light
Summer’s got you in the mood for some adventure, and the mountain bike in the garage is calling you to get outdoors and blaze some new trails with your handheld GPS. But the weather forecast is for hot. Heiß. Caliente. If only you could mountain bike after dark, you think….
Which brings us to this week’s DIY Friday project: a high powered LED headlight for your mountain bike helmet.
The folks over at Singletrack provide the instructions, and a list of materials you’ll need:
- A 7.2v 1400mAh Ni-Cad battery
- A 150mA trickle charger
- Some 2 core mains cable
- A White luxeon star V LED
- A collimating lens
- A 22mm pipe cli
- A AMD heatsink
- Some thermal paste
- A re-usable zip-tie
- Some small zip ties and electrical tape
- A DPDT sub-min toggle switch
- A 1 Ohm resistor and a 0.47 Ohm one, both rated at 3W
Singletrack provides a list of suppliers for the above materials in the UK; a little bit of Googling (DIY style) should turn up suppliers for our U.S. readers. (Tools required consist solely of a junior hacksaw, a file, some glue and a soldering iron.)
Still need more illumination than the light that is now attached to your helmet? Race Day Nutrition provides the plans for a bike light (that you can attach to the handlebars) using three 3W Luxeon LEDs.
For additional ideas — more illumination, as it were — check out the DIY LED Bike Lighting Guide, which makes the case for LED over halogen for a variety of factors, from more acceptable battery drain to lighter weight and less heat.
Now get pedaling.
