Introduction: Contactless Dynamo Bike Wheel Lights

By
On this instructable you will see how to power some LEDs spinning in a bike wheel without any battery. This project is very similar to another one previously presented (https://www.instructables.com/id/Contactless-dynamo-powering-bike-safety-lights/ ), with the difference that now the coils and the LEDs are spinning and the magnet holds still.



What you will need:
  - 3 relay coils (I had some with 200 and others with 600 windings);
  - 1 HD magnet;
  - 3 diodes (general purpose diodes are ok, I used 1n5818 schottky for the low voltage drop);
  - 18 blue LEDs (you may use how many you want or even other colors - white is also cool).

For the continuous mode just add:
  - 1 capacitor (4700uF seemed fine, you could test some other values);
  - 1 switch to be able to choose between modes.

Step 1: Circuit Diagram

Each coil is placed in series with a diode and three of these configurations in parallel. This way when one coil is providing energy, that power will not be consumed by the two other coils (simple half wave rectifier). The current flows directly to the LEDs where the voltage is the one generated by the coil with about 0.6V drop at the diode in case of a general purpose one. For a schottky it should drop only 0.3V or even less.

When the capacitor is connected to the circuit, it will be charged and will keep the LEDs on for some time when no coil is providing power.

Step 2: Rear Wheel Setup

I used pieces of aluminum to place the coils on the spokes. There is a gap of about 4mm between them and the HD magnet.

LEDs have their anodes wired to the circuit while cathodes are attached to the spokes, which are connected to the coils. This makes less wires around the wheel.

Step 3: Front Wheel

Here we the setup from the older instructable applied to the front wheel. The circuit is just all LEDs (1 blue + 5 white) in parallel with the one coil. The blue LED is located ate the coil and the white LEDs are on the front light.