Introduction: Simple POV Wheel Lights

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About: Fixer, Finder, Fabricator. I teach engineering to high school students, at St Marys Secondary College in Nathalia VIC Australia

This Instructable will show you how to make POV lights for bike wheels that generate random colors and patterns and doesn't require any electronic circuit boards or special skills. When I first saw a monkey light I thought that is cool can I make one? Then I saw the electronics and thought probably not. After a bit more thinking maybe I don't need the electronics just to make random patterns. So I built it, not knowing what i would get in the end but it works pretty good. You don't need much to make them and should only take a couple of hours. Other road user certainly notice you at night and children point and say "look mummy his bikes on fire"

Step 1: Getting Started

The way the circuit  works is very simple. If a flashing LED is wired in series with a number of normal non flashing LED they will all flash. As flashing LEDs flash at slightly different rates it only take a few seconds before you start to get some interesting patterns and colors. The parts you will need can be bought quite cheaply from an electronics hobbies shop or if you don't have one near by, from the internet. I chose red blue and green LED ribbons and red 1 HZ flashing LEDs, and you will also need two 9vot batteries.
Parts List
  •     3 LED ribbons (red blue green)
  •     3 flashing LEDs
  •     2 Nine volt batterys
  •     2 Battery snaps
  •     Cable ties
  •     Clear plastic or acrylic
  •      Switch
Tools
  • Soldering iron
  • Hot glue
  • Insulation tape
  • Wire cutter/ stripper

Step 2: Making the Strips

First thing to do is to make three strips for the LED strips to stick to. I first made a paper template to get the right shape and get an idea of how to attach the strips to the spokes. I decided to use 2mm clear acrylic plastic and simply cable tie it to the spokes. Once the paper template was correct (it took a few tries to get it right) I then cut out 3 triangle shaped strips and drilled hole for the cable ties. You will need to take care when drilling the holes as acrylic tends to grab the drill and split so use light pressure and put the plastic on a block of wood.

Step 3: Wiring It Up

Once the plastic is cut the LED ribbons can be attached, using the self adhesive backing. It not clear from the photos but the ribbon is folder over the top and  runs across the back of the plastic  so that both sides of the the wheel are lit. Next the flashing LED can be hot glued into place, remembering both the ribbons and the flashing LED are polarity sensitive which means it will not work if wired around the wrong way around. The circuit also uses two 9 volt batteries joined in series to give a total of 18 volts and again they need to be wired the correct way around or the circuit wont work.
  • The red wire from the ribbon need to go to the short lead of the flashing LED and all three ribbons need to be wire like this.
  • Next all the flashing LEDs long leads can be wired together with a red wire and all the black leads from the ribbons can be joined together
  • The 2 battery snaps can be wire together in series and the then the red and black wires soldered together.
  • Once all three ribbons are wired together the red and black wires can be joined to the battery pack and some insulation tape can be used to tidy up the wiring.
  • Fit the batteries and you should have a flashing light show.
  • A switch can also be fitted if you wish

Step 4: Attaching the Lights to the Wheel

Once everything is working, It just a case of using cable ties to attach the the plastic strips at regular spaces around the wheel, and cable tie the two 9 volt batteries to the center hub. I could could probably come up with a better way to attach the batteries, but the cable ties seem to work quite well. Its also worth the effort to put a switch in the circuit at the battery snaps are difficult to remove one the batteries are fitted to the wheel.
Ive also tried to take a video of the wheel in action but haven't had much success, Its a bit like filming a spinning propeller I keep getting some strange looking results that don't look like anything that you can see with the naked eye, and dont do the project justice. The finished lights It looks a lot like the photos anyway.
Its very hard to even take photographs of the bike in motion with low light so Ive include a few failed attempts before I just gave up and "faked it" Pretend to ride the bike and Ill spin the wheel photos

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