Has anyone seen these?
They’re strips of LEDs you attach to your spokes, that display designs and text… They sound pretty cool.
From their website:
Less than $30 per light strip…
-Jon
pretty cool, but how about this stuff?
http://www.johnsonsmith.com/store/product_detail.asp?UID=2002122717541537&item_no=22039&keyword=CAT1_I%40&cat_keyword=&search_page_no=1
and
http://www.johnsonsmith.com/store/product_detail.asp?UID=2002122717541537&item_no=24067&keyword=CAT1_I%40&cat_keyword=&search_page_no=3
these are sortof cool, but the guage thing would be on yellow a lot
I want one of those tire pressure things.
Those lights would be awesome if they werent 30$. I personally would buy ones for text and have “MUni Militia” on it.
Re: Next generation spoke lights!
That there pretty much makes them impractical for a unicycle. I don’t know what wheel size they use to come up with that 7 mph minimum speed. The minimum speed could be based on a 20" wheel. If it’s based on a small wheel the minimum speed on a Coker would be more than 7 mph because the 36" wheel does not spin as fast at 7 mph as a smaller wheel. In any event, a 7 mph min speed would not work for parades.
If anyone has tried these things on a unicycle I would be curious to know how they worked. I would suspect that you’d need to use 3 or 4 per wheel to get a better image persistence of pattern at typical unicycle speeds.
Canadian tire has those valve pressure guages. they are $10cdn for a pair.
(they come in diferent pressures, so make sure you know what pressure you like to ride with, so that pressure is Green)
Canadian Tire also has battery powered xmas lights (the small ones) on sale. I’ve got some red ones on my Muni now and just picked up 3 sets of clear ones. They’re great for night time and parades (although I have no parade experience)
Re: Re: Next generation spoke lights!
The pics on their site show what looks like a bike with 26" wheels. If that’s the basis for the 7mph minimum, they’d probably work on a Coker…
Maybe someone could hack these things to run at lower rpms?
Or, if enough unicyclists showed interest, maybe the makers would engineer a unicycle version.
Sounds like a job for Unicycle.com!
Re: Re: Next generation spoke lights!
Depends at what point on the wheel you’re referancing, yes? Points closer to the outside of the wheel travel further per revolution… partly the idea behind shorter cranks, allowing the foot to travel at a lower speed per rev…
-C
Re: Next generation spoke lights!
The company in Taiwan who made those won a third place award for innovative
bicycle parts this year.
Darren
JonM wrote:
> Has anyone seen these?
>
> http://www.hokeyspokes.com/
>
> They’re strips of LEDs you attach to your spokes, that display designs
> and text… They sound pretty cool.
>
> From their website:
>
> # Fits on virtually any wheel with any spoke lacing config 24" or
> larger.
> # Weighs only 6 oz. with 3 AA batteries
> # Only 7 mph speed is required for full image persistence
>
> Less than $30 per light strip…
>
> -Jon
>
> –
> JonM - My other wheel is in my mouse…
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> JonM’s Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/1759
> View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/22452
I think they’d be kool for a coker, but that’s all in my opinion.
Wouldn’t those pressure things change color as you do drops and such? I would think that the pressure change caused by the compression of the tire would be enough to change the color.
Of course that would be no where near as cool as those Hokey Spokes. Unfortunately I would have to agree with John that it would be impractical for unicycles, as if it’s really “Practical” for anything.
Daniel
There isn’t a tire pressure change.
The tire flattens out at the bottom from a drop, but that’s just sending all the air to the top. it isn’t compressing it any more.
And you wouldn’t check those gauges right at impact anyways…it’s more of a check it before you ride, type of thing
Uh-oh!
I see another Amateur Scientist physics discussion about to hatch!
Sofa, if there’s no change in pressure, how come when you play that “Stomp-on-the-Balloon-tied-to-your-Ankle” game at birthday parties, the balloons always burst?
Re: Next generation spoke lights!
On Sun, 29 Dec 2002 09:03:47 -0600, Sofa
<Sofa.gfhrb@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
>There isn’t a tire pressure change.
>
>The tire flattens out at the bottom from a drop, but that’s just sending
>all the air to the top. it isn’t compressing it any more.
If the air goes to the top without the pressure becoming higher, then
to maintain the total tyre volume the tyre has to bulge out more (as
compared to the unloaded situation) at the top. However, the tyre has
no “reason” to bulge out if there is no increased air pressure.
Therefore, it’s a bit ot both, i.e. the pressure does increase but not
as much as if the tyre were inelastic and couldn’t bulge out.
Today (29 December) is the last day this year that is not the last day this year and also not the last day this year that is not the last day this year
Re: Re: Next generation spoke lights!
I rode with a girl who had them on her 26" MTB wheels. She had to be going a bit faster than 7mph to get the patterns to show up well, maybe 12-13mph. I’m thinking they were talking about 20" wheels at 7mph.
John
Those things look really cool. But the two issues, speed and price, will probably keep most of us from trying them. They seem to want you to use at least three per wheel. That’s $90 for a unicycle, not to mention $180 for a bike! And unless I’m reading their price list wrong, even more for multi-colored ones.
If they become popular enough for larger production runs, the price should drop. Question is, will they be able to do that large production run?
I’d also worry about the speed, based on the previous post. 7mph on a 24" unicycle isn’t too bad, but only if they work at that speed. I would try to use them on a big wheel, but it would require more of them to fill up the space. I’m not going to spend that money. But I do ride my big wheel fast when I’m in parades.
The site also mentions “BMX versions available in Q3, 2002.” I wonder when that was written?
So I’d like to see the price come down, and then I’d try them out!