new light

Zebee Johnstone said:

In aus.bicycle on Sat, 27 May 2006 11:00:40 +1000

Ray said:

The only downside, as with all dynamo's is no motion, no light.

The standlight in the halogen I've borrowed stays lit for some time
with the bike stationary.

Enough to be seen at a stopsign, while perhaps not enough to read a
book by....

The solution being I guess just to get one of those cheap "be seen" led
flashers. I've got one of those in addition to my LED and halogen
lights. (four lights in total, and N+1 dictates that I need more...)

But what I'm wondering about with the hubs is how much power they can
produce. If I am reading the reviews correctly, 3 watts.

That's enought to run a reasonable Luxeon setup, but 3 watts wouldn't
light up a halogen terribly brightly.

For $350+, say it isn't so Zebee!

Travis

In aus.bicycle on 27 May 2006 05:19:03 -0700

Travis said:

The solution being I guess just to get one of those cheap "be seen" led
flashers. I've got one of those in addition to my LED and halogen
lights. (four lights in total, and N+1 dictates that I need more...)

I use my flasher as well. Adds nothing to the seeing ability but does
to the seen. And I can switch it to non-flash and read maps 🙂

Quoted message said:

That's enought to run a reasonable Luxeon setup, but 3 watts wouldn't
light up a halogen terribly brightly.

For $350+, say it isn't so Zebee!

It isn't so.

It produces a strong white light from the halogen at anything over
about walking speed.

Where I have it adjusted it produces a large pool of light that's as
wide as the bikepath and a bit more well enough in front of me that I
can do a reasonable speed and see where I'm going, although the bits
where it winds a lot are tricky.

It may only be 3W, it's producing something that looks like 10+

And no batteries... ever again.

Zebee

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Ray said:

The only downside, as with all dynamo's is no motion, no light.

The solution being I guess just to get one of those cheap "be seen" led
flashers. I've got one of those in addition to my LED and halogen
lights. (four lights in total, and N+1 dictates that I need more...)

Yes, I just did that a few weeks ago, handle bar real estate is an issue
though, I had to hang the light under the bars to fit.

Quoted message said:

But what I'm wondering about with the hubs is how much power they can
produce. If I am reading the reviews correctly, 3 watts.

That's enought to run a reasonable Luxeon setup, but 3 watts wouldn't
light up a halogen terribly brightly.

For $350+, say it isn't so Zebee!

The 3W is when run into the standard voltage limited lighting system.
6V x .6A = 3.6W - which you will find is the German regulation.
(ironically now pumping out HID lights in cars!)
The advantage though is the limiting device exists in the lights, so no
restriction exists at the dynamo.

If you allow the voltage to rise, you can get more power, but at a
maximum of 600mA.
eg. the forward voltage to turn on two Luxeons in series is approaching
8V.
so in effect you are now supplying ~4.8W.
The trouble is to harness the faster = higher voltage requires some
tricky electronics.
But the reality is two luxeons perform very well, and do not suffer from
filament burnout....

Cheers, Ray

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

But the reality is two luxeons perform very well, and do not suffer from
filament burnout....

Oh, I meant to also mention that the luxeons will always produce white
light, whereas the halogen's color temperature is highly power
dependent.
A halogen will dim (in color to orange) as you slow down, whereas the
luxeons will revert to a pulsing mode of semi bright white light.
In fact at walking speed, you get the LEDs firing away nicely.

Cheers, Ray

Karen Gallagher said:

Peter Signorini said:

Poiter said:

Hang about.
The output from a hub dynamo is AC not DC.

As far as I recall, a dynamo is generally specifically DC,
alternators are AC. But then I'm no electrical expert.

And it's usually varying DC, so has many of the characteristics of both AC &
DC - burns bulbs out faster, but can be transformed as it's fluctuating in
waveform. The level of variation is not as much as on early bike dynamos so
far as I know.

Cooool. AC with a DC offset...

Tam