Trade in Your Cold Cathodes for LED's!

Cold Cathodes are bright, fun, and bring a smile to everyone's face when seen. I have used Cold Cathodes for a while and the usage of batteries was absurd, over 16 batteries every four hours! This instructable shows with only a little time, you can change your 600volt Cold Cathodes for 12volt LED's.

Step 1: My Current and Old Bike

A long long time and many bikes ago, was my first bike, ever since then, i have been modding it, from bikes to big wheels and wagons. When i first put Cold Cathodes on my bike, and since the thought, i have considered LED's but thought it was too expensive, and they still are. But in the long run with the amount of batteries i have used through out the time on my old bike and new bike, it has been expensive.

Cold Cathodes, although cheap, as with not being energy efficient, weren't very durable. And broke from time to time. Even just the cords. One more flaw in the design was the small fuse in the 12v to 600v inverter was irreplaceable; or hard.

Step 2: Getting Started

Get your stuff together, seriously, its getting out of hand and all over the..oops wrong conversation.

Well Get the required supplies for this experiment....

Zip ties
RGB LED light strips (i got mine from my brothers truck, which he got from walmart, apparently he has too much cash on his hands to get them online.)
RGB light strip controller.
1 8 AA battery holder from radioshack or your favorite electronics store, i used 2 4 AA holders.
8 of your favorite brand of AA battery.
1 9v battery clip for your battery pack
Duct Tape
Some of your brothers lemonade passionberry tea stuff from starbucks, instructable soon!

Step 3: Durability

Since these strips and LED's in general are very durable, we do not need padding as with our 1st way of energy wasting Lighting. Its like a strap and go deal. Yet with extra wires. When mounting the Lights with zip ties, be sure the wires do not get caught in the chain or wrapped around something that may mess with your brake system. It does not end well.

Step 4: Battery Package.

Using a cup for the battery pack helps for the durability of the system as the batteries have almost no way to fall out. You can cut off the 12v adapter and strip the wires or you can leave it on and wrap the wires around the ground clip and unscrew the tip and stick the red wire in there. Stripping the wires has less chance of a short which will be much better. You can also tape the batteries inside the holders and zip tie them under your bike seat. Do not try to zip tie the batteries to the bars anywhere on the frame of your bike, it does not go well and they fall out constantly.

Step 5: Mounting the Control Board

You will need about 2-4 zip ties to hold the control board to the handle bars, to straighten it out, wrap tape over it self a few times, and place the tape pads sideways on the handle bars and tighten the zip ties.

Step 6: Technically, Your Bike Is Better Now.

Be the hero of the bike community near you with your sweet new lights secured to your bike. If you have a straight handle bar, you can use the thicker type double stick tape. Hopefully you will give me feedback and ways to make my instructable better. Thanks! Enjoy.