| Author | Message | ||
     Scottorious |
I need some good badweb advice. I have scoured the net and seen a couple ways of doing things and I want to see what everyone thinks here. I like to play with my soldering iron every now and again and now that I have this scooter it would be fun to do some electronics projects. I have everything except the headlights and dashlights converted to LED, Dash lights will be next. Anyone ever messed with LEDS much? I think building an LED headlight would be a fun project. Next is a USB power port. I know I can buy one but this whole project is more about just doing it myself. I know radio shack sells voltage regulators that would give me a steady 5V but apparently they put out a lot of heat. Has anyone built their own USB power port? I know this isnt an electronics question but What about a DIY smart phone mount? I am thinking Id like to mount it where a mirror used to be. Last does anyone know the power output of american sportbike's heated handgrips. I had in mind that it was like 13 watts? | ||
| Reepicheep |
Do you have any programming experience? If you can program in C (or have an interest in learning it), you invest under $50 and have a development platform to do some staggeringly interesting things with an $8 microcontroller circuit. Or go with the Audrino platform, which is a lot easier to program, but it means you are looking at $30 or so for each device you want to deploy. As for the 5v, any switching regulator will run cool. That will probably come as a module, not as a component. The three pin regulators you get at radio shack are series regulator, and volts (that the regulator drops) times amps (that the regulator passes) are watts, and watts are always hot. A switching regulator "cheats" and is either all on or all off (which is a clever way to avoid power dissipation, its X amps times 0 volts = 0 watts. Or 0 amps times X volts which = 0 watts. You need a capacitor and inductor though... But I digress.  I looked into LED headlights a while back, and it was still over $1000. Prices keep dropping like a rock though, so if you can find some interesting parts to cannibalize you might be able to do something interesting. The "home use" LED's might make a great commodity priced source of parts to start cobbling with. It will become an interesting problem in heat management. | ||
| Scottorious |
Yah I would be interested in learning some programming, I really don't know a thing about it. The only programming I ever did was programming things on my TI-83 calculator so I didnt have to do the calculations for tests. What sort of things would it control on a scooter? Could a car style usb power adapter be cannibalized to get a switching regulator? and essentially have the whole "module" already in tact ready for me to adapt it for my purposes? As far as an LED headlight I dont think I would need much, I almost think a flashlight would about be bright enough for going 53 MPH down the flat straight road to work.  This is where I am at now with this project. I do think a really bright LED headlight would be pretty cool though. | ||
| Reepicheep |
You need 35 watts (traditional filament) of power minimum unless it is just a running light. A $100 LED flashlight is probably lucky to be 15 watts equiv. Whats interesting is the new "household" bulbs... I think they are getting there, not sure how much they cost. So probably a good time to give it a second look... when those first 50 watt household LED bulbs start showing up, it would be really cool to convert them for bike use. As for the microcontroller... Take a look around here: http://www.piccircuit.com/shop/pic-dev-board/130-i cm12-usblink-smart-usb-to-serial-converter.html With a $1 to $8 PIC chip, and another $5 of supporting parts, you get (electrically) a platform that can sense analog input values (on a scale of 0 to 1024 for 0 to 5 volts), sense discrete (on or off) values (lots of them), output 0 or 5 volts, measure the width of a pulse on a line with very high accuracy and resolution. But the gas on the fire for that hardware is the fact that you can then make decisions about those inputs and outputs with a program written in C. And do it thousands of times a second. If you have ever tried to design an analog controller of some sort, it is insanely difficult. Think staff years for anything serious. But I can write a C program that can do it in hours or days. And if I want to change it, I can do so in minutes (recode, recompile, re-burn the chip). You will still need a bit of analog thinking, but not much. Like figuring out the right voltage dividers for your sensors, maybe a MOSFET driver circuit to control high power loads, etc. The Audrino does the same thing and is *very* accessible. It's a great choice if you are doing one thing for you. But the chip and hardware is still $30 or something for each device you want to deploy. I like the $5 to $8 cost of a fully built out PIC device, so I can make them and hand them out like Christmas cards. This thread (start at the beginning) has some schematics I posted so you can see how simple the circuit is... http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/384 2/656898.html?1319823179  That's everything you need to sense ambient temperature and vehicle voltage and turn on an LED and a switch as a result. | ||
| Sifo |
The USB charger would be easy if you are not looking for an electronics project for learning. I've seen cigaret lighter USB ports that could easily be converted and wired into any 12 volt source you want. The LED headlight sounds like headaches to me, unless you just {want} to do it, or are looking to reduce electrical load. It won't be DOT legal, and there are issues to consider such as beam spread/pattern. Total brightness is one I'm not sure how to calculate. There doesn't seem to be a clear way to compare lumens and watts of a conventional bulb. Not all LEDs are equal either. Not by a long shot. Check the spec sheets carefully. If the LEDs you are looking at don't have published spec sheets, they are probably not going to be suitable for a tail light, much less a head light. Be sure to calculate voltage drop based on the specs. Putting too many in series will reduce the light output. Overdriving them doesn't increase output much though. There are some good calculators online for exactly this purpose. This project might get surprisingly expensive. I would be curious about ideas to pack a large quantity of LEDs as tightly as possible while maintaining good alignment and durability. I dealt with this place when I built my tail light... http://www.superbrightleds.com/ | ||
| Scottorious |
reducing electrical load is the main concern. I am limited to 203 watts and my current headlight configuration is weak at best and is 70 watts. I dont think i have to deal with this currently but next summer I would imagine that the radiator fan might draw a large chunk of power. Reducing the load would be nice. Having a really bright headlight would also be cool I guess that the brighter the headlight the better in a sense. Obviously not the low beam. Ideally I would like to run some heated hand grips and charge my phone(I know thats a pretty small load). I also have a lot of free time at work that some cool electrical projects would be fun. | ||
| Sifo |
Reducing the load on the headlight would be pretty easy, straight forward, and inexpensive by changing to HID conversion. After an initially high start up load they don't draw nearly as much as standard bulbs. They kick out more light to boot. I like the LED concept, but would probably cost more that the HID kit by the time you were done. Then if you didn't get your engineering done well enough the first time, the costs can go up dramatically to fix any problems that show up. No doubt it can be done, but the cost may surprise you by the time you have enough LEDs to get the desired brightness, along with other materials needed to put everything together in a durable package. Nice thing about LED lighting though is you can do some cool shaping of the array if you want. | ||
| Scottorious |
Ive looked at some HID things, Once again I dont know much about them yet. That also seemed really expensive for the entire package including reflector assembly. I am still looking at HID also | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
Contact Rah7777777 he's XBlights.com, a board sponsor. He makes LED lights for Buells, I imagine he'd be able to help you. | ||
| Sifo |
I bet DDM Tuning has a kit that would work with the dual lights/reflectors you have mounted. I think dressed with a fly screen of some sort it would look great. Or most any motorcycle headlight bucket off Ebay would just fine. I was surprised how quality LEDs added up in price to just get a bright tail light. | ||
| Boogiman1981 |
what about the MR16 LED replacements? they all run on 12v already. basically a drop in by comparison and with a pair i'd think you'd have enough luminosity. | ||
| Sifo |
A quick look for MR16 lights shows them to be 6.7 watt replacements. That seems awful weak for headlights IMO. Is there something better out there. | ||
| Loki |
If you could boost the input voltage to 74 vdc...... We are converting the standard light bulbs on the locos to LED. These things are bright and white. | ||
| Reepicheep |
How much for the bulbs Loki? I can solve the 74 volt part. | ||
| Sifo |
If your budget allows you could go with something like this...  http://www.twistedthrottle.com/trade/productview/7 521 They've got a number of options available. Not what I would call cheap for a scooter project, but it does solve the low power requirement problem with a prefabricated unit that is well engineered. | ||
| Sifo |
They've also got a chart in this link comparing an led option to HID and halogen. Might give you an idea of what to look for it you want build something. At least you would have an idea of the total lumens to shoot for. http://www.twistedthrottle.com/trade/productview/5 242 | ||
| Scottorious |
I do like that first option. Super low power consumption. I am sure it would be better than what I have by a long shot...but for 200 dollars is that a good primary headlight system. | ||
| Sifo |
That is the difficult question... Is it a good primary headlight system? Doing a search for "LED lighting" on their sight gives a nice variety to compare. Fairly simple 2 headlight systems... http://www.twistedthrottle.com/trade/productview/5 224 Very simple 1 headlight systems... http://www.twistedthrottle.com/trade/productview/5 242 Pretty expensive dual intensity systems... http://www.twistedthrottle.com/trade/productview/6 158 Pretty expensive single intensity systems... http://www.twistedthrottle.com/trade/productview/7 254 And the original ones I posted... http://www.twistedthrottle.com/trade/productview/7 521 I see some of them have lenses that can be swapped out to change the beam pattern. That would allow for a change of high/low beam in theory and would be much like an XB with a headlight being "out". I saw some had lenses for fog lamp use too. The single light link has a chart showing it to put out more than a 55 watt halogen bulb. That still leaves the question of light pattern, which can also be important. Throwing a lot of light into the eyes of oncoming traffic may not be the best option. I would at least consider giving them a call or try their live chat link to ask what they think about your application. One word of warning, I think these are meant to be auxiliary lighting systems on adventure bikes. I doubt they are DOT certified. Neither will any home brew system be though. I just wonder if I could develop a home brew system that would at least equal what is available without spending even more by the time I'm done with experiments, and getting it weather tight, etc. A used headlight housing from an XB paired with 35 watt HID lights would give you a ready to use system that will work VERY well with fairly low power draw. Not as low of a draw as the LED system, but better than halogen. The final price wouldn't be a budget buster either. | ||
| Sifo |
I just happened across this site... http://www.ledcreations.net/ It seemed fitting for this thread. |
