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Step 3Headlights
The headlights are Luxeon Rebel Stars from http://luxeonstar.com . They say that no lenses are currently designed to work with them, and I have no idea whether you could get some to work well enough. Having these on my backpack straps, the lenses would be really bulky anyway, and I don't have a particular need to see far ahead. If I'm riding under city lights at night then I just care about being seen, and I'm satisfied with how far ahead I can see with them in dark areas. It's pretty much a 180 degree blast of light, though. In the city, the street lights all around in front of me are always blinking along with my lights. They blow away every other bike headlight I've been around, and people are always amazed by them. Sometimes I wonder if they're actually too bright and unfocused, but I've gotten no negative reactions of any kind, except when I accidentally turn them on right in front of someone.
The Rebel Stars I used put out 145 lumens @ 700mA. You can get ones up to 180 lumens @ 700 mA. Compare this to a Luxeon III which is 80 lumens @ 1000mA, or Luxeon K2s putting out 75 Lumens @ 700mA or 130 Lumens @ 1500mA. And you can actually run the Rebels at 1000mA, which could get you up to maybe 200 lumens. As I said in the intro, I don't remember exactly what kind of juice I wired them up for, but I believe it was in the neighborhood of 500mA each.
The headlight on the right was the first, and crappier, iteration. I tried using epoxy and that didn't work so well. The left is how I would do it if I were to make another set of these. They're pretty much completely exposed, but they seem to be ok with that. The actual Rebel LED part has this little clear rubber bubble thing, which is pretty fragile and soon was ripped off of each one. But it didn't noticeably change the optics. JB Weld holds them on and seals off the contacts. For each light, I pressed the spiky sides of two heatsinks into each other, which then gave me these slots that I could run zip ties through to attach them to the backpack straps with.
And that's pretty much it!
The Rebel Stars I used put out 145 lumens @ 700mA. You can get ones up to 180 lumens @ 700 mA. Compare this to a Luxeon III which is 80 lumens @ 1000mA, or Luxeon K2s putting out 75 Lumens @ 700mA or 130 Lumens @ 1500mA. And you can actually run the Rebels at 1000mA, which could get you up to maybe 200 lumens. As I said in the intro, I don't remember exactly what kind of juice I wired them up for, but I believe it was in the neighborhood of 500mA each.
The headlight on the right was the first, and crappier, iteration. I tried using epoxy and that didn't work so well. The left is how I would do it if I were to make another set of these. They're pretty much completely exposed, but they seem to be ok with that. The actual Rebel LED part has this little clear rubber bubble thing, which is pretty fragile and soon was ripped off of each one. But it didn't noticeably change the optics. JB Weld holds them on and seals off the contacts. For each light, I pressed the spiky sides of two heatsinks into each other, which then gave me these slots that I could run zip ties through to attach them to the backpack straps with.
And that's pretty much it!
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Apr 18, 2009. 8:46 AMlavert31
says:
Hello, It's look neat and full light. about the star, did you use current regulator or just connect each star directly to the batteries? Etay
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