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World's brightest bike lights

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Tesladownunder

Tue Sept 28 2010, 12:52AM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

IamSmooth wrote ...

I can see a use for these mounted onto the back of a car if someone is tailing you. Boy, would that person be surprised!

I hope not to incite any road-rage.

Grenadier wrote ...

Have you considered lithium batteries?

Cost would be an issue I imagine, but mostly I didn't want to have much of a learning curve. Also the power demands are quite high and heating may be a problem.
I tried a 10 min 50A discharge from my current batteries with only minimal ?2 degrees temp rise of the batteries.

mikeselectricstuff wrote ...

I reckon you could get something brigher in that volume using a bunch HID lamps or UHP projector lamps. Would probably need liquid cooling though.
Or maybe just just one big xenon-arc lamp as used in follow-spots or movie projectors.

You are correct to a point as HID's/Xenons are a bit more efficient than the best LED's. They are also more compact and are much closer to a point source and can be focused tightly. So for that tight beam they would be great.
However, I don't have any special expertise with "glass" (unlike yourself) but do with 100W LEDs so that seemed the natural way to go. The key point is that pricing of the 100W LEDs have dropped to around US$100 which makes the project feasible. So with some expense I can make a leading edge project that was not possible only a few months ago.

I have recently scrapped an ancient 8kW medical Xenon arc ophthalmological unit. 200Kg worth so I have some appreciation (but little understanding) of the complexities involved.

The other big issue is that this is not just a bright light. It will be a bright forward light that I can strobe, pulsate, dim, sync to music, or colourise to any colour at reduced power.
The same with the rear light. Either a red brake light or a flashing red and blue police light, or a smoothly colour changing light etc. This gives it more variety by far. And it gives crazy shadows.......

1285634847 10 FT97378 Ledbikerearlightscarrier2

1285634847 10 FT97378 Ledbikecolourfulhand

Russell Haley

Tue Sept 28 2010, 01:28AM

Registered Member #2478 Joined: Mon Nov 23 2009, 03:24AM
Location: Texas A&M University
Posts: 47

I think Tim Taylor would like this.

Killa-X

Tue Sept 28 2010, 01:35AM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

Russell Haley wrote ...

I think Tim Taylor would like this.

True.. <Insert grunt here> but it would likly blow up if it was his work.

Still, Will be cool to see it as a display, Surly shows the power of LEDs

Tesladownunder

Wed Sept 29 2010, 12:51PM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

Pic below is the setup on the bike. The frontend will be the same as the Worlds brightest flashlight (WBF) and needs to be detachable.

1285758365 10 FT97381 Ledbikefrontrearmock

This shows the 1.5 ohm equalising resistors needed for the 3 different colours. Red LEDs need almost 10V less.

1285758365 10 FT97381 Ledbikerearresistors

Muttyfutty!

Thu Sept 30 2010, 10:16AM

Registered Member #2915 Joined: Fri Jun 11 2010, 10:41AM
Location: Malaysia!
Posts: 101

Holy Crap!
This is the most impractical thing I've ever seen but I LOVE it!
The shadowing effect is also extremely cool.
Great job!
Cant wait to see more.

Regards,
mike

Tesladownunder

Sat Oct 02 2010, 11:49AM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

Lighting a lighthouse!
Took these photos with a SINGLE 100W LED pointed at our lighthouse and gives an idea of the 5 degree beam brightness. (The bike will use 15 of these). The lighthouse is on but you cant see the beams easily in the photo from this angle. It runs on 3 1.3AH 12V SLA batts that the LED is resting on on a gatepost. Running around 3A 34V via a 0.4ohm resistor if I recall.

1286019965 10 FT97378 Ledbikebunburylighthouse100w

Click to animate

1286020012 10 FT97378 Ledbikelighthouseanion600

1286019965 10 FT97378 Ledbikebunburylighthousefar

Dalus

Sat Oct 02 2010, 12:56PM

Registered Member #639 Joined: Wed Apr 11 2007, 09:09PM
Location: The Netherlands, Herkenbosch
Posts: 512

What optics are you using? I'm making a single 100W led flashlight that still needs optics. The 5 degree beam angle would be great for it.

Torchwood

Sat Oct 02 2010, 03:44PM

Registered Member #2668 Joined: Sun Jan 31 2010, 12:11PM
Location: South Australia
Posts: 18

My eyes, the goggles, they do nothing!

Tesladownunder

Sun Oct 03 2010, 01:36AM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

Dalus wrote ...

What optics are you using? I'm making a single 100W led flashlight that still needs optics. The 5 degree beam angle would be great for it.

Led-world2007 is the place I use. Ships from Hong Kong. The 10cm diam glass lenses need to be about 10cm from the LED to focus to 5 degrees so you will lose some of the beam to side scatter.
This only applies if you are tusing the 100W chips like I am.
You must get the fan/heatsink as well from the same place.

1286069682 10 FT97378 Ledbikebunburylighthouse100wclose

Steve Conner

Sun Oct 03 2010, 10:07AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Oh, dammit, I want one of these 100W LEDs to play with too now!

Did you get the LED array from that Hong Kong Ebay seller too?

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