I know a few people in the UK who make their own lights for night riding.
Can you give me a few starting points on how to make them?
I have started to look at various websites but there is a lot of varying info.
Cheers
Des
Hi Des,
I’ve built them, using kits and parts from http://www.cutter.com.au
Basically, you need a cree LED or Seoul z-power LED, a lens or reflector to make it shine in the right direction, some kind of constant current source (something that takes power from a battery at one end, and gives out a constant current at the other end), and a battery.
I’ve got a quite neat helmet one, which is made from the cutter 500ma cree kit - runs off 2 AA batteries, weighs about 100g including batteries, and has a built in rear light. I commuted using it for about 9 months last year.
One thing worth thinking about is cheap torches - dealextreme.com sell lots of LED torches - and they are similarly bright to my one, just strap them on your helmet (or bars on a bike) and you’re ready to go. There is an Ultrafire 606a Q5 which is the one many people use, runs off 2 AAs. With the torches, you don’t end up with quite so nice a package, but it saves bothering with soldering, and is often cheaper than buying the parts.
There are also some torches using the Seoul P7 LED, which is very very bright (think almost as bright as an HID light), as it is basically 4 of the normal power LEDs all stuck into the space of a single LED. It runs through batteries quite quick though - most of the torches use lithium ion batteries, and run for about an hour on the high setting. From Dealextreme, these torches cost about £20 - £30
Joe
DEs- do you want a 2nd hand set cheap? not quite home made, but home modified.
Tis a white light, halogen bulb not LED, currently runs on a LA rechargeable battery with long enough cable to mount battery under saddle and light on helmet.
Shout before BUC if your going to be there and I can bring it along.
Sarah
Apparently Tesco are selling a 2xAA powered Cree LED light for a tenner that’s supposed to be quite good; you can rig up a helmet mount with an old inner tube or velcro or something and bob’s yer uncle…
I’m looking for one but our local tesco had the two large sizes but not this little one!
The Tesco one is really good. I’ve used it for a couple of unplanned night rides. Its quite a narrow beam but it is bright and only a tenner.
I’ve bought one of these today. Although it came with batteries I decided to fit rechargables, except the two types I tried would not fit in the torch 
Even the supplied batteries were a tight squeeze, dropping out slowly due to the near air tight seal.
Will see what the beam is like tonight at BUC.
I’ve had that - there are two fixes - either take the cover off the batteries, or just attack the torch a little with a circular file.
On one of my torches, the rechargeables can just about be pushed in, which means to take them out you need to unscrew the torch head and use a pen to push them out. Which is easy enough to do.
It’s better to have a tight fit than a rattly battery, because the tight fit is pretty easy to fix.
Joe
put some rock crawling night lights for a 4X4 on your car. I am thinking of doing this. but you can only ride where your car goes though. I am from usa and this makes sense. but I dont know about the uk.
-JOE
Only in the USA!