DIY bike light with some special features

Hello guys. I usually visit this section of the forum to see your designs on lights.

I have seen many fine buildings, and retained a lot of ideas here.

So I decided to share my latest project with you, here are some of the features:

20 x Cree XP-G
http://www.led-tech.de/de/High-Power...3_120_138.html
Microcontroller: Atmel 2560 (​​with Arduino bootloader)
http://jkdevices.com/arduino-megamini
Driver Hyperboost (modified to 1.6A max.)
http://www.taskled.com/techhboost.html
EM-406A GPS Receiver SiRF star III
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/465
2 batteries 4s 4500ma
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...Lipo_Pack.html
2x 30x30mm Fan Sunon maglev
http://www.xsfans.com/index.php?main...roducts_id=565
2x current sensors:
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8882
16x2 character LCD
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/709
A humidity sensor
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9569
2x capacitive sensors "IQS127D" (for buttons)
Lm35 temperature sensors 3x
Etc..

Some features:

20 cree xp-g. Controlled by PWM, currently has four fixed light levels .. but is then to vary automatically as the speed of the bike and ambient light.

GPS receiver (for now just to know the altitude, speed, and time)

Information on ambient , LED and driver(mosfet) temperature. Information relative humidity and ambient light.

Read the voltage of individual 8 cells, the input and output voltage on driver, and the current input and output of the driver (for future calculation of efficiency and autonomy in the driver).

Capacitive Buttons (IQS127D chip), illuminated with RGB LEDs individually controlled by the 8-bit PWM. (all DIY)
(color of the left button depending on battery power, and the right side as the front light mode selected)



Some img:

Heatsink for servers:





Driver with a dedicated box and sink .. the driver is inside the light and is
ventilated by two fans along with the LED's:



Testing the GPS module:






Some tests in the wild:














I know that the light is very ugly

I would like to hear your opinions and ideas to improve the light. Or ideas to add new functions to the software.

Greetings.

Re: diy bike light with some special features

i've got nothing to offer other than to say the beam looks great

Re: diy bike light with some special features

:bow:

Re: diy bike light with some special features

Pretty awesome project

Re: diy bike light with some special features

Love it! Is there anything that it can't do?

Re: diy bike light with some special features

Holy smokes! Good work! And with so many features, you must have spent many hours designing and building this light system.
A question, are those Carclo optics, and are they a narrow beam or wide beam? Also, are they cool white emitters? And, what country are you in?

Salute!
Jeff

Re: diy bike light with some special features

jeffosborne, the light took about a year to be built, because I was to learn programming, and various other things about electronics.

These are CARCLO optics, I used different angles. Medium and tighter in the center, and wide at the tips. The copper base where are the LED's seem flat, but is slightly curved, so the LED does not all point in front.

I think the light distribution is not bad, but the coolest part is having about 110 watts of power running smoothly and completely controlled by a simple capacitive buttons. I did not use any connectors, relays or other mechanical device in all the light :thumbsup:

There are 16 xpg R5 and 4 xpg s2, all cool white.


I am from Portugal!


Thanks everyone for the comments

Re: diy bike light with some special features

Can you do some beamshots with your bike vs you carlights? It doesnt look like 110W of led light on the videos... I could be the camera that makes it so dark.

Re: diy bike light with some special features

A few more photos of the construction:







With the "old" friend (7 [email protected] max):



Total of 27 xp-g @ 1.6A!

Re: diy bike light with some special features

The_bad_Frag said:

Can you do some beamshots with your bike vs you carlights? It doesnt look like 110W of led light on the videos... I could be the camera that makes it so dark.

Click to expand...

In the LEDs maximum power is around 100W. But the entire system consumes about 110W.

Usually the cameras compensate automatically the sensitivity according to ambient light.

I'll try to make a video comparing with the car's lights.


Thanks for the comment :thumbsup:

Re: diy bike light with some special features

Foliveira, you are off your'e trolly man, well done, that is indeed a nice setup, how long has it taken you to complete

Re: diy bike light with some special features

That's a lot of light. Glad to see someone else working with speed based controll. I have had it on my home made systems for a couple of years now. Nothing like the light you have but plenaty for 24 hour racing and the speed based controll gets me about 2-3 times the battery life without having to think about it while racing.

Hi recycler, the light took about a year to be built.

Much of the time was to learn programming. The light functions are simple, but it was difficult for me because it was the first time I worked with a microcontroller. And I learned almost everything by internet, in forums like this:thumbsup:

But the light is still not completely finished, I am thinking to add new functions to the software, and some funny stuff on the screen as custom characters, and animations .. only for the system has a less "rigid" look.

I also thought of putting an SD card to store GPS tracks, I've seen people do it with similar microcontrollers.

Hi ifor powell, thanks for the comment.

I've been seeing pictures of your buildings. They are very cool:thumbsup:


Which method you use to do speed based light?

For my speed based control. The lights have have had a made where they except a light level sent from my home made bike computer. Curent setup has a serial link for the bar light and an Ant based radio link for the helmet light. I use TaskLed drivers but reprogram them. Next version will be all Ant based. I have a 4XML bar light just waiting for the nessasary driver work but am curentrly working on a mobile App version of the bike computer, so no more of my dodgy soldering at that end.

Fantastic build.

Hi ifor powell,

Do you have a topic about your home made bike computer? I would like to see it.

I have a Garmin Heart Rate and it works by ANT +.

It would be amazing if I can put a receiver ANT + and show up on the screen of my flashlight :naughty:


I searched the internet and found a project with an Ant sensor to receive the information from Garmin Heart Rate, but the code seemed very complicated.


You build your own code?

Sorry no writup on the bike computer. Best I have are some pictures of version 1 and 2 at https://picasaweb.google.com/iforpowell/Bike_Computer?authuser=0&feat=directlink

You can get an Ant module from Sparkfun. Coding for Ant is a bit tricky but at least Ant now have the Ant+ specs more publicaly avalible than they did when I was doing it. You may want to check out Golden embeded which is an open source Ant data reciver project. http://chomsky.shampoo.ca/goldenembed/

Ifor

Thanks for the reply.

I saw the pictures of your projects, you must be expert in programming to do that!

I'll buy a module Ant + and I will try to put it to work. It will be difficult because I have little knowledge of programming.

Thanks for your help!

Here are some pictures of a kind of comparison, car VS flashlight.

The car has 2xH7 lamps for medium and 2xH7 for maximum.

I turn on both, so they are 4 x H7(55w) Vs 20 xpg at 1.6A



The camera is a Nikon p300 in manual mode, with 1/25 sec 1.8f.


At 4 meter from the wall:






At 12 meters from the gate: