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Dr_jeff
Guest
Hi All
New to the forums, but very impressed with all of the designs I've seen here.
I'm looking to build a bike light based loosely on Elektrolumens tri-star. I'd like to use 5 W luxeons and I'd like to use a high efficency potentiometer to be able to adjust current draw on the fly. The light output at the full 15 watts is great for descents, but more than is necessary for climbing. Given the relativly linear power - lumen relationship of leds ( especially in comparison to incandecent lights) it seems that you could reduce the current a fair amount to prolong battery life while climbing, then on the descent where brightness rather than battery life is the priority, switch back to the full 15W.
I figure I could buy the tristar and mod it fit on my bike without too much difficulty. Where I'm running into problems is figuring out what kind of potientiometer to use. I've seen some pretty nice digital power regulators here, but haven't yet seen something that has multiple power levels. Is anyone aware of anything like this?
Obviously I'm very new to this whole modding thing (my background is medical not electrical engineering) Beyond the basic physics equations of V=IR etc, I'm pretty much in the dark (sorry about the bad pun), so any advice or information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Jeff
New to the forums, but very impressed with all of the designs I've seen here.
I'm looking to build a bike light based loosely on Elektrolumens tri-star. I'd like to use 5 W luxeons and I'd like to use a high efficency potentiometer to be able to adjust current draw on the fly. The light output at the full 15 watts is great for descents, but more than is necessary for climbing. Given the relativly linear power - lumen relationship of leds ( especially in comparison to incandecent lights) it seems that you could reduce the current a fair amount to prolong battery life while climbing, then on the descent where brightness rather than battery life is the priority, switch back to the full 15W.
I figure I could buy the tristar and mod it fit on my bike without too much difficulty. Where I'm running into problems is figuring out what kind of potientiometer to use. I've seen some pretty nice digital power regulators here, but haven't yet seen something that has multiple power levels. Is anyone aware of anything like this?
Obviously I'm very new to this whole modding thing (my background is medical not electrical engineering) Beyond the basic physics equations of V=IR etc, I'm pretty much in the dark (sorry about the bad pun), so any advice or information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Jeff