another lighting thread

blubenz

New Member
Local time
9:07 AM
Joined
Apr 8, 2008
Messages
12
Location
Mobile, AL
i was reading through all the light treads last night and i realized everyone had a problem with trying to find a non battery lighting source, well i got to thinking and come up with this question 'has anyone tried a dc to dc transformer?' like this one sorry admins ive been reading the forums for about 6 monts now and just have never got around to posting before.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
But wouldn't that take more magneto energy to produce that power?

You should introduce yourself,btw so we can all say HI!
 
But wouldn't that take more magneto energy to produce that power?

You should introduce yourself,btw so we can all say HI!

oh sorry my names chris,im in mobile al, and ive been riding for about 7 months now, its gotten to the point ive quit driving my 83 greymarket benz altogether and drive my bike everywhere ( i'm a mantience tech at an appartment complex so i got tired of gas and killing my car)

ill post some pics of my bike when i have some time.

as for the transformer, if i split the power coming from the motor going into the transformer wouldnt that give power to the plug and step up the voltage going to the Accessories at the same time beings its a step up transformer (3v-40v to 4V - 60V)
 
Last edited:
But wouldn't that take more magneto energy to produce that power?
Exactly,all your doing is converting one irregular voltage with very little current to another irregular voltage with very little current,and there has to be some loss in the system.It would however come in handy when u wanted to run something that exceeded the voltage output the engine is capable of supplying.
Handy thinking though. :)
 
That reminds me of that lap top car cigarette plug adaptor that will KILL your battery within the hour if you don't leave your motor running while posting here lol.
 
I have been thinking along the same path. I had a friend at work design a circuit to do a similar thing. Knowing there is no way for the magneto output to run good lights my though was carry a small 12v battery, r/c batteries would work great, then use the attached circuit to charge the battery. This circuit would charge at around .25 to .5 Amps. This should keep the battery charged when lights are not used and make it last much longer when the lights are in use. I figure depending on the size of the battery you could run almost an hour before the battery starts getting low.
 

Attachments

  • Schematic.jpg
    Schematic.jpg
    32.7 KB · Views: 443
That reminds me of that lap top car cigarette plug adaptor that will KILL your battery within the hour if you don't leave your motor running while posting here lol.

yea i think i saw something like that on the websie this came off of ( http://www.ete.co.nz/ ) there is some more stuff on there that might look promising. It looks like there is a 12v and a 36v model.
 
Last edited:
One thing to remember

Browsing the forums, it looks like the output of the magneto is about 6 volts at .5 amps for a total of 3 watts for the lighting circuit on the 2 stroke engine. 3 watts, which is the total power output, will not change unless you change the magneto. Using some way of stepping up the 6 volts to 12 volts will still result in 3 watts max. That means .25 amps max at 12 volts. Increasing output voltage decreases output current proportionately so you will never actually gain power for a lighting circuit. A charging circuit designed for this setup would be lucky to put out 200 ma. (.2 a) which might work depending on the battery and light combo and how much the light is used.
 
I have been thinking along the same path. I had a friend at work design a circuit to do a similar thing. Knowing there is no way for the magneto output to run good lights my though was carry a small 12v battery, r/c batteries would work great, then use the attached circuit to charge the battery. This circuit would charge at around .25 to .5 Amps. This should keep the battery charged when lights are not used and make it last much longer when the lights are in use. I figure depending on the size of the battery you could run almost an hour before the battery starts getting low.
That's brilliant. That's about the only way I'd want lights on my bike.
 
Back
Top