Enlighten me..

[Lorday]

Ok, here goes nothing...

Hi, names Alex, I live in Australia, I know little about lights, but I have a slight obsession with maglites, and candles (well fire)! This year is my final year of school (year 12), one of the courses I am studying (design and technology) requires a MDP (Major Design Project).

For this project I am designing a 'commuter" bicycle, essietially designed to get you to and from work, and when at work not stolen (hence my innovation).

Well as some of you may know, night riding is definatly in the cards for the majority of workers. So I'm adding a lighting system, similar to those of the AY UPS lighting system but BRIGHTER!

So with my knowlegde quite limited (to electrochemistry, no wiring), so I started reasearching bits and pieces, but I am still going to need your help. (btw - I can solder quiet well.)

SO, first of I need to know the the lights I am using, which will be LED's (more effeicent, etc etc - I actually know a little about LED's, have done a research task a year or two back), so I think: 3 CREE XRE-Q5 up front and another out back. Is there something brighter, or better for my purpose? Remember, I want brightness (hmm...about 400 lumens?)

So this means I need a battery...I got to about the point where I figured it would be a Li-Po (lithium polymer) battery, then I found you (lovecpf)

So help me in battery choice as well please..... ohh...It needs to be rechargable.

Continuing on, it needs to be wired up in series with 15 or 16 guage (I think) wire. Going to need help woth the circut diagram for that.

So, yeah if you can help, that would be great, and your help would be MUCH appreciated. I will need further guidance on this, so I'll be asking some more stuff later on, as well as keeping you all updated on my progress!
Thanking you in advance, and sorry if there's poop grammer and spelling, or you can't understand anything, acouple of stategical placed broken fingers have made typing ALOT harder.

 

[Greg G]

Have you had a look at Cutter's website? They are in Australia as well, and have all of the parts you need to build a great light.

Cree Q5's are fine, but Cutter has the next step up, which is the R2 Cree. Study the forums here about tint. Outdoors, you're probably going to like something like WG or WH tint a lot better than a WC.

For a driver, Cutter has the TaskLED drivers. Nflex is the buck driver, Maxflex is the boost driver. Which one will work for you depends on the battery pack. They also have several different drive levels.

Cutter has optics, bike housings, the whole nine yards, or you can build your own housing and use reflectors. There are a lot of options.

I don't know anything about battery packs for bikes, but generally, the more capacity the better.

As for that fourth LED on the back, I honestly don't know which way you should go. What do you want it to do? It will a marker light I'm assuming, so it has to be seen, not project a beam far away. I'd probably address it separately. I'd connect it to the same battery pack, but set it up with it's own driver and switch. I probably would not even use a Cree R2 on it, but something less powerful, with a red/orange color, like the Lumiled's Superflux.

 

[Lorday]

Thanks heap