Monday, March 31, 2008

Lighting system plotting

I'm not one to leave well enough alone. I've had the SON hub, Lumotec LED, and E6 halogen lights running for a whole week, so of course it's time to screw about with a perfectly good working system. It's just so terribly inconvenient to have to stop the bike to turn lights on and off.

Being the lazy sort that I am, and in the interests of experimenting with just how much difference in pedaling effort I can perceive with the lights on and off, I've decided to build a remote switching system for the lights. I figure a nice three-position OFF, PRIMARY ON, and PRIMARY+SECONDARY ON switch mounted on the handlebars would be cool.

Now, the problem. I'm barely competent to plug in a soldering iron, much less do even the simplest of circuit designs. Of course, ignorance has never stopped me before, but I figured consulting someone who has a vague idea of what they're doing would be wise, when it comes to potentially screwing up a $mumblemuttermumble lighting system. Enter the patriarch, the wise engineer, my dear old Dad, who was courteous enough to suppress laughter at my feeble excuse for a schematic, and kind enough to transcribe into legible format:

So, the next step will be to swing by Radio Shack and source a nice switch, plus some simple weather-resistant disconnects, extra wire, silicone sealant, heat-shrink tubing, and all that good stuff. I figure I'll bodge something together, get it working, then plan to do a nicer setup later, based on the mistakes I make on this version. (I'm envisioning marine-grade illuminated LED rocker switches and all sorts of similar craziness...probably will never do it, if the first version works, but what the heck.)

2 comments:

Buckyllama said...

Hey,

Not sure if this would work for your switch or not, but it's been sitting in my bookmarks page forever so...

http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=3048

Reddan said...

Dunno if it fits my needs exactly, but it's cool regardless. Thanks!