I'm Blind !!!

... Well, no.... but I saw spots for a while.

I bought a Luxeon III 3 watt LED module for the headlamp of the S7 as an experiment.  Its rated at 0.65 Amp at about 80 lumens.  The viewing angle is decent too, so there's plenty of dispersion.  I mounted it on an aluminum heat sink and mated it with a LM317T voltage regulator.  I had planned for a current regulator setup, but the voltage regulator was more practical making the heat sink the Vout terminal and bolting everything together.  I turned it on and got a faceful of light.  It got rather warm after a little while while I was monitoring it with an RTD strapped to the heatsink.  The rated max is a whopping 80'C... which I never reached set at half an amp draw, so I should be good.

I was rather impressed that it threw as much light as it did.  The beam is a bit concentrated, but I think it may be enough to see with.  I'll have to try it out.  I'll likely never take the bike out in the dark anyway, but its nice to have enough light to be seen in the daytime.

The load on the dynamo is now perfectly attainable at normal running revs.

Lean or Vapor Lock?

So, I braved the 3 mile journey into town to the gas station with the S7 Deluxe this morning.  It was a beautiful autumn day and I couldn't resist.  KYL95 started right up and purred along nicely down the road.  No popping, no carrying on, just reliable shaft power pushing me down the road to reach 11,900 miles.

I got a few quizzical glances while topping up.  It even started with a gentle kick for the journey home.  6 miles later I was still enjoying the wind on my face when I pulled in the driveway.

I figured I should take a quick glance around the machine and make sure no leaks or loose bolts were developing.  I let it sit for a few minutes and then figured I'd go out again!

That's when the trouble started.  She wouldn't start.  I had to put the strangler on, and then when I turned it off when the black smoke started, the engine would sputter and stall.  What's going on?  It ran fine for 6 miles and even up hill both ways!

I surmise that either the engine is simply running lean, or that the carb is vapor locking after sitting next to those hot exhaust pipes.  I coaxed it around the house and closed the garage door behind me.  Further investigation is required.  I can't believe that its running lean since when its relatively cold it runs great.  Its gotta be the heat off that exhaust header, even with the fiberglass exhaust wrap.  I wonder what I could use to insulate?  Maybe a piece of the exhaust wrap around the bowl and around the fuel line?

Imps going to Hershey

(It used to be Chocolate Town, USA but since Hershey Food Corp is now outsourcing so much that that title has been pass onto the town of Lititz... where they make Wilber Buds.  Mmmmm)

I just saw this photo and remembered going to the Hershey Vintage Hillclimb in 2008.  Too bad that this was the last Hershey Hillclimb forever.  We didn't know that at the time, so I'm glad we had such a good time helping out and being a part of history.

Decreasing Electrical Load on Dynamo

If I can't make the dynamo put out more current, maybe I can reduce the electrical load of the bike and try to make the best use of the available current that the dynamo will produce.  That means replacing some of the high load incandescent bulbs with some modern LED technology.  Of course 6 volt positive ground LED lamps are not commonplace, so I will have to create them.

Here's the general idea.  The trick will be to diffuse the light enough that it doesn't look like they are LEDs.  The other trick will be to separate the high and low intensity "filaments" on the tail / brake light so they don't feed back into the system.  That's easily done with some regular signal diodes, and two different resistors.  With both resistors running in parallel, I'll set their combined resistance at the maximum current of the LEDs.  With only one running, I'll see what percentage of max current still gives a decent output for the tail light "filament" circuit.

The running lamp bulb in the headlight should be even easier.  I can just use some white LEDs and pile them into the bayonet base of a dead lamp.  Diffusing this lamp will probably prove to be more difficult since there's nothing to hide the fabricated LED lamp assembly in the big headlamp housing.  Maybe a piece of plastic diffuser or reflector from something else will work.

I did sacrifice an ultra-bright LED that I had in my junk box from an old project to prove a concept.  Most LEDs have a rather narrow view angle.  I took the file to the lens of one of these LEDs and ground it flat.  Then I used some fine emory paper and polished it up.  I'll have to refine the technique, but essentially it works.  It diffuses the light into a wider area, rather than focusing it into a beam.  I did get a weird halo effect, but I think I just need to polish the edges a little more.

I don't plan to run the bike in the dark if at all possible, so If I can just reliably run the running lamp circuit without the main beam I should be fine.  The main headlamp is a HUGE 30w draw on the dynamo, and it just doesn't keep up.

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The running light in the head lamp was easy.  6 Ultra-Bright White LED's soldered into a bayonet lamp base.  The rear tail light lamp was a little more challenging, per the above diagram.

Dang! that's BRIGHT!

Both these replacement bulbs LED assemblies draw less than half an amp and put out MORE light than the original incandescent bulbs.