How To...
- Build your own lights
- Fit a new fork
- Choose and fit a set of disc brakes
1. Mr Bodgit's Light System
When my well known brand of lighting system decided the batteries had had enough charges, I was faced with a choice of (a) new batteries to suit the product, (b) a completely new lighting system, (c) a completely home-made system, or (d) a mix of the above.
Being a typical Yorkshireman, I opted for the cheapest (and easiest) option - (d) a mix of the above. As the lamp units and switch seemed to be still working, I decided to simply replace the battery sticks with my own water-bottle battery pack. Here's what I did.
First of all I bought a cheap water bottle with a wide neck, big enough to fit two radio control model battery packs inside. I then bought two battery packs from my local model shop (LMS) and a suitable charger, as I'd decided to overvolt from 6V to 7.2V for a brighter light (at the expense of marginally reduced bulb life).
I also 'borrowed' some polystyrene packaging from work and bought an in-line DC socket from a well known consumer electronics store, and some suitable silicone cable and connectors from the local model shop.
I then made up a y-connector (as shown below) using three connectors and four strands of wire.
The next thing I had to do was to cut the middle out of the bottle mouthpiece and pass another two strands of wire through the resulting hole, connecting my in-line DC connector to the outside end of the wires and a male connector to the inside end, keeping the polarity the same as on my y-connector.
Once I'd done this it was just a case of dropping the batteries into All All I then needed to do was drop the batteries into the bottle with some polystyrene to stop them rattling, as shown below, add some heat-shrink to the cable coming through the mouthpiece, charge the batteries, connect it all up, and go.
The finished product:
Mr Bodgit update - 22nd April 2007. Unfortunately the 'well known brand' switch unit has given up the ghost - the flexible membranes over each switch have become brittle, with the somewhat disconcerting effect of switching the lamps on and off at random whenever I ride over some bumpy stuff (i.e all the bloody time!)
I have another well-known brand of helmet lamp, for which the battery has had enough charges. I'll be swapping some bulbs around and a Mr Bodgit™ Helmet Lamp will be born. Review to follow when I've actually had chance to ride in the dark...
