What is the best LED bicycle head light for every day after dark commuting in a city?

best battery powered bicycle lights image

Jesus Hipp

I have a huge and heavy 16 LED flashlight that works well. But well, it's huge and heavy and the "D" cell batteries rattle... though they do last along time. Any suggestions? I'm not spending more than $30 ish. Need to be a quick release and usable with a handlebar bag in place also.

Answer
Try this light, it's a bit more money 34.95 but it will do what you want and the store will ship. You can get the phone number off the site. Power On Cycles, just too let you know its a Recumbent shop. Mark and Linda Powers are great to deal with.

http://store.valueweb.com/servlet/poweron/Detail?no=242

How can I light my bicycle lamp using dynamo and rechargeable batteries ?

Mrinal

How can I light my bicycle lamp using dynamo and rechargeable batteries in such a way that the lamp lightens by the dynamo while pedaling and at the same time rechargeable batteries get charged so that it can be used to light the lamp when i am not pedaling ?
p.s. I have a bottle dynamo .
I don't need any product which does this directly. I want to do it myself. So , please suggest some way to do it.

Answer
Essentially - you can't. Especially not with a bottle dynamo.

Basically, the output of the dynamo is just sufficient to light the light. There's nothing left over that you could store in the batteries. In theory, you could load the dynamo differently and get more power out of it, but that won't work with a bottle dynamo because it'll just start to slip - you'd need a hub dynamo for that.

Otherwise, it depends very much on what type of lamp you have and what kind of copronmise you're willing to do for the standing light. If, for example, you had a LED lamp with a single LED in it, you could just parallel a supercap to the LED through a resistor. In practice, this would suffice to give you a few minutes of (much reduced) 'standing light'.

However, this kind of kludgery is (technically) from about 10 years ago. Meanwhile, light manufacturers have noticed that people would like to have decent lights on their bikes that continue working even when standing still and have come up with those:
http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/schmidt-headlights.asp
or those:
http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/b&m-hl.asp

If you still want to build your own stuff, you can start reading here:
http://www.forumslader.de/12V-Automatik-USB.219.0.html
http://fahrradzukunft.de/11/steckdose-unterwegs/
http://fahrradzukunft.de/12/steckdose-unterwegs-2/
http://fahrradzukunft.de/12/low-drop-lader/
http://fahrradzukunft.de/12/minimal-lader/

Powered by Yahoo! Answers

What are the electric scooter laws in California?

best battery assist bicycle image

Al Francis

I'm unable to get a licence so the best I can really do is get a scooter. I'd like to at least get around town easier without relying on public transportation. I've done a little bit of research in which people say its possible to ride a scooter that clocks out at a speed of 20 mph and no more without a licence. The kind of scooter i'm talking about looks like a gas powered scooter but is actually just an electric assisted bike. there's so many places on the internet to look but I just want to hear someone from California to confirm what I can ride. I'd greatly appreciate your help`
the type of scooter i'm looking at is electric and does not require gas. it has slip on pedals and has no exhaust.

Answer
http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/motors.html is useless -- does not cover the new electrical scooters. Not to mention that the CHP sometimes ignores the law. It you want to be legal, read the law from the Legislature: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/calawquery?codesection=veh

A CVC 407.5 "motorized scooter" is a stand-on vehicle, such as a Razor or Go-Ped. Such is legal on the streets, requires a driver's license of some sort. See CVC 21220-21235.

You want something that looks like a motor-scooter, that looks like a Vespa. That will be a CVC 406 "motorized bicycle" or "moped." If electric powered it can do 20 mph if it can also be pedaled, or if no pedals it can do 30 mph. To be legal on the streets you need to have a Class M2 motorcycle driver's license.

You say you cannot get a license? You are up sh*t creek -- there is *NO* motorized vehicle you can legally ride without a driver's license. Why not? Under age or what? If 18-20 years of age you can take the CMSP class, go to the DMV and pass the written and eye tests and walk out with a motorcycle permit. If 21, don't even need the CMSP class.

Otherwise, about all you can do is get a pedal bicycle. Legally. You can buy a bicycle wheel with a motor in the hub and a battery in your panniers and ride in stealth mode, illegally.

Can Exercise equipment be used to generate electricity?

photoguy19

A lot of the aerobic equipment at the gym creates it's own electric current for the displays. Why can't this be wired into the system to assist with the electricity the gym uses?

Answer
While it could be done, it would probably take a hundred years to pay back the investment in the electric machinery it would take to recoup any energy from exercisers. Let's think it through...

A person exercising fairly hard can generate perhaps 300 Watts averaged over an hour. Lets say your generator is 70% efficient. That means 200 Watts per treadmill or bicycle - perhaps if there are 50 machines there are only 30% (15) being used at a time so 15 times 200 equals 3000Watts. 3000W*1 hour is 3kW hours which costs about $0.25 (a quarter) So your exercise generator system makes you $4.00 per day, assuming that 30% of the machines are in use 16 hours per day (which is really optimistic) Your system would make the bikes or treadmills more expensive and you would need to install equipment to be able to use that energy, lets optimistically say that adds an extra $100000 for 50 special bikes/treadmills and a battery inverter system and all the necessary wiring, etc... So it would take 25000 days or 68 years to pay back the added cost of machinery...based on the assumptions I made.

You can make different assumptions and write a report on it ;)

Powered by Yahoo! Answers