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Tron bike: it's a 100% clear plastic bike frame with LED edge lighting. The entire frame starts from a single flat sheet of clear polycarbonate (lexan) plastic which is cut into pieces and assembled. LED edge lighting is added to provide great night-time special effects. The bike falls a bit more on the "art" side than the "practical" side as it is heavy and wobbly, but it is rideable and great for cruising town around at night.
The original (un-lit) clear plastic frame concept & design is by saul, who led an intersession class at the MIT Media Lab in 2003 (?) where about 10 students each designed and built a clear plastic bicycle frame. Some of the students modified the frame styling a bit, one of the other frames with a more curvy style is shown below.
After seeing one of the frames around MIT in 2004, I had the idea for customized edge lighting so I built up a frame and added the lighting effects.
The full project here is quite a lot of work unless you have a high-end machine shop at your disposal, but there should be several ideas for you along the way. I've included the CAD files for the plastic frame and the C code for the microcontroller. This is an "after the fact" documentation, i built this about 3 years ago.
As seen in the Wired Blog.
This article is brought to you by MonkeyLectric and the Monkey Light bike light
The original (un-lit) clear plastic frame concept & design is by saul, who led an intersession class at the MIT Media Lab in 2003 (?) where about 10 students each designed and built a clear plastic bicycle frame. Some of the students modified the frame styling a bit, one of the other frames with a more curvy style is shown below.
After seeing one of the frames around MIT in 2004, I had the idea for customized edge lighting so I built up a frame and added the lighting effects.
The full project here is quite a lot of work unless you have a high-end machine shop at your disposal, but there should be several ideas for you along the way. I've included the CAD files for the plastic frame and the C code for the microcontroller. This is an "after the fact" documentation, i built this about 3 years ago.
As seen in the Wired Blog.
This article is brought to you by MonkeyLectric and the Monkey Light bike light
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Signing UpStep 1Tools & Parts you need
plastic frame:
- a 4' x 8' sheet of 3/8" thick clear polycarbonate
- a 2' x 4' sheet of 1/8" thick clear polycarbonate
- a 2' long, 1" diameter clear polycarbonate rod (handlebar)
- acrylic solvent cement
bike build:
- standard bottom bracket
- standard seatpost & seat
- 26" rear wheel with coaster brake
- 26" front wheel
- threadless headset
- 12" long aluminum fork tube (sized for your headset diameter)
- standard stem
- standard crank arms & pedals
LED edge lighting:
- as many LEDs as you desire (this one has about 200 x 5mm leds, but you probably want to use high-power leds)
- 22 guage wire in 4 colors
- three copies of my simple constant-current led driver circuit, one for each bank of LEDs
- simple Atmel AVR controller circuit which drives three FET's, each fet turns on/off one of the LED banks.
Tools:
You need to be able to cleanly cut out the plastic frame parts from the sheet of plastic. You might be able to do this with a jigsaw, a dremel tool and a lot of patience, otherwise you'll need a CNC mill or a CNC waterjet cutter.
You will need a bottom bracket tap to cut the threads into the plastic to screw in the bottom bracket, most bike shops probably don't have one of these and you'll have to try a custom frame builder.
A dremel tool to polish any of the plastic edges that don't quite fit.
standard bike tools
soldering iron & pcb assembly gear
- a 4' x 8' sheet of 3/8" thick clear polycarbonate
- a 2' x 4' sheet of 1/8" thick clear polycarbonate
- a 2' long, 1" diameter clear polycarbonate rod (handlebar)
- acrylic solvent cement
bike build:
- standard bottom bracket
- standard seatpost & seat
- 26" rear wheel with coaster brake
- 26" front wheel
- threadless headset
- 12" long aluminum fork tube (sized for your headset diameter)
- standard stem
- standard crank arms & pedals
LED edge lighting:
- as many LEDs as you desire (this one has about 200 x 5mm leds, but you probably want to use high-power leds)
- 22 guage wire in 4 colors
- three copies of my simple constant-current led driver circuit, one for each bank of LEDs
- simple Atmel AVR controller circuit which drives three FET's, each fet turns on/off one of the LED banks.
Tools:
You need to be able to cleanly cut out the plastic frame parts from the sheet of plastic. You might be able to do this with a jigsaw, a dremel tool and a lot of patience, otherwise you'll need a CNC mill or a CNC waterjet cutter.
You will need a bottom bracket tap to cut the threads into the plastic to screw in the bottom bracket, most bike shops probably don't have one of these and you'll have to try a custom frame builder.
A dremel tool to polish any of the plastic edges that don't quite fit.
standard bike tools
soldering iron & pcb assembly gear
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great idea, btw