Trade in Your Cold Cathodes for LED's!

by ThinkBeforeYouSpeak

10K3017

Intro: 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.

18 Comments

Yonatan24 8 years ago

What are cold cathodes? Fluorescents?

frollard 15 years ago

Thats an awesome, high visibility project!<br/><br/>Cyclists are already in enough trouble with dumb other motorists. Perhaps green, traditional signal for 'go' (subconscious) isn't the best colour. I know I find it distracting when there are led billboards that use green as a main colour. They cause people to jump red lights all the time.<br/><br/>Definitely stick with a non-go colour - red's good, blue might be taboo with your local police force (especially if your bike is considered a motor vehicle when driven on road, which they usually are == impersonating an officer charges, I kid you not)<br/><br/>Still, significantly awesome project, and great writeup!<br/>

mowie 15 years ago

you think other motorists are dumb have you ever thought of using the BIKEPATH on the side of the road and not distracting the other drivers that PAY to drive on the road

frollard 15 years ago

I am a paying motorist (rarely ride a bike :( ) Motorists ARE dumb, in general. No amount of courtesy can average up the level of stupidity on the road. Most places aren't lucky enough to have a 'bike path'. Bicycles ridden by adults are considered motor vehicles, and in MOST areas, MUST NOT drive on the sidewalk in fear of getting a traffic violation (operate motor vehicle on sidewalk). Bicyclists pay taxes too, and have every right to use every road. Drivers should be AWARE at ALL times of whats going on around them, instead of eating, makeup, personal hygene, and cel phone distractions. Bicyclists also have to ride extremely defensively - this instructable is a testament to that. If you have a problem with sharing the road with cyclists - you shouldn't be driving.

mowie 15 years ago

It must just be in the country that i live in or even the city but there are bike paths next to allmost every road and the cyclists still choose to ride allmost in the middle of the road so if you want to go around them you would have to go onto the wrong side of the . Some of them tend to weve all over the road anyway and not stop at red lights or stop signs . im not saying its all cyclists but you should see what they do.If they do get hit everyone allways says its the car drivers fault.

ac1D 13 years ago

It's the same thing here, they all go on the street when they could use the special bike path.. and they are everywhere, bike path here.

ThinkBeforeYouSpeak 15 years ago

Yes but in my town, we have a Huge bike trail, yet some bicyclists think they are too fast to use it so they ride in the middle of the road.

frollard 15 years ago

And thats perfectly legal.

Zealous 15 years ago

If you go down the middle of the road you can get done for dangerous driving...

ThinkBeforeYouSpeak 15 years ago

Well, i have blue and white cold cathodes, and my green ones broke, and these LED's change color and do all kinds of stuff.

ThinkBeforeYouSpeak 15 years ago

lol, red and blue flashing outta get them mad, but, i've never has a problem with the police, they have always given me looks even when i didn't have lights.

xboxteen01 15 years ago

Thats awesome. Where could you buy those RGB strips cheap?

ThinkBeforeYouSpeak 15 years ago

I'm not sure where you can get them cheap, mine for the controller and two strips was $75, i'm guessing you can search around on google and stuff until you find a good deal.

hg341 15 years ago

if only i had money this looks well done