|   New homemade light system... again | BillyTK
Jan 20, 2003 1:12 PM | | Like I promissed below here's some details of the construction:
Material used:
- Cable H05VV-F4x1.5 mm2
- 1 bulb 20w/12V 10º opening (xenon)
- 1 bulb 10W/12v 24º opening, this bulb does not exist so I had to make a few changes to an existing one, witch were getting a 24º 20w dichroic lamp and take the halogen lamp of it, I had to brake it and drill it out lefting only the reflector (no pics of this, sorry), then I use another Halogen lamp and put it in the reflector to have the desired lamp.
- 2 packs of batteries, 12 1,2v/2.1Ah batteries each pack (14,4V/4.2Ah total).
- 1 Aluminium bottle full of foam inside to hold the batteries.
- 2 Plumbing pipe converters (50/40mm)
- Aluminium tape (to cover the lamps , and to pad the pipe converters)
- 2 pressure switches
- 2 microphone outlet's (those are very good because they can be screwed, therefore never disconnecting and keeping water away)
- Granite spray for the paintjob( pretty resistant to high temperatures)
This is a picture of the battery, that's one pack only, there's two of those, but for short rides I'll only use one, for longer rides I just have to open the bottle and connect the other pack.
Here's a pic of the bulbs, there's the xenon lamp covered with aluminium tape and the halogen 10W bulb I used to make the low beam, I just don't have the reflector pic, sorry.
The alumimium around the reflector is very important because it prevents light to come backwards, making it much more eficient and even more important it keeps the heat to come backwards, the tubes are also padded with this tape (no pics of this too), I've also tried it for 3 hours with 50w lamps to make sure it wouldn't melt, it survived.
Here's another pic of the xenon lamp
And another of the halogen bulb
And the bottom of the bottle
P.S.: Thanks Cook, I think I've got it now. |
| And at what cost to you for this homebrew? | PROGRE-SS
Jan 20, 2003 2:05 PM | | Unless I missed it in your earlier post. I'll check now. Thanks!
James |
| And at what cost to you for this homebrew? | BillyTK
Jan 20, 2003 2:26 PM | | I haven't consider the costs yet, but I believe that a system like this considering the hours I put on it, would cost me something like $150, you may think it's expensive but remember that I'm using only high quality materials, like xenon bulbs, Panasonic Nimh bateries, etc., I could cut the price a lot by using other brand of batteries or using NiCD or SLA bateries, my old system if you check bellow use Panasonic's SLA bateries and it costed me about $50 for the same power and burn time, of course it doesn't look so good. |
| What???? | Fast Eddy
Jan 20, 2003 4:39 PM | | You can build a 4.5ah 13.2v NiMH sanyo battery for $55. http://www.batterystation.com/nicad.htm Look for 4/3FAUX. |
| What???? | BillyTK
Jan 21, 2003 1:40 AM | | Well that would make for a $66 14,4V/4.5Ah battery, that sounds very good.
There's one thing you have to consider, we live in diferent worlds, I live in Portugal, Nimh batteries don't come cheap around here, I can pretty much guarantee you that I have the lowest prices in a 200km radius, but on the other hand SLA batteries are here much cheaper than in the US, for example a 6v/3,4Ah Panas. is for sale for $14, I sell the same batterie for $10.
The prices vary a lot in lots of things you should see the prices some bike parts comes around here, let's see a Fox Float RLC costs almost $950, on the other hand there are some guys in USA paying $350 for Crossroc's I paid $200 for a set, this had nothing to do with the subject but was to give an idea of prices variation.
About the light system again, the Nimh batteries are in reality not worth the extra cost around here, but there's a lot of things in bikes that don't worth the extra cost and we buy them anyway.
And there's one other thing if I was buying a Niterider or anything of that kind would be much more expensive and this system I can deduct on my store IRC's. |
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