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I already have a pretty good lighting system on mine, and in the process of designing a rectifier, regulator, and charging system for a small rechargeable battery that will run off the magneto, so I don't end up spending a fortune on batteries.

Keep me posted on the lighting system you are working on. I would love to hear about someone making it work. So far I don't think that anyone has come up with a system that will do it. If you get it to work good, I would like to know what you did so I can do it too! Good Luck!
 
Lighting

Here is the concept of my design.

Use a lithium or nickel-metal hydride battery (preferably lithium) pack(s) that could maintain the lights for more than 20 hrs. full intensity using a halogen bulb for the headlight and LEDs for the tail just on a charge alone. The magneto would trickle charge the battery pack or provide supplemental power during full intensity use of the lights.

The head lamp that I have has four options, 1. full intensity halogen, 2. low intensity halogen, 3. continuous bright LEDs 4. flashing bright LEDs.

During daylight driving I could run the flashing LEDs both front and back from the power of the magneto, while still having enough current to provide a trickle charge to the battery pack and as an option be able to plug the charger into a wall outlet that could give absolute dead batteries a full charge in 1 to 3 hours.

It can be done. The trick here is to limit the amount of current to the charging system and allowing enough current for the ignition system. I'll have to get mine running and take some measurements to find out what the capabilities of the magneto and the demands of the ignition are before I can start putting it all together. I figure though that at idle speed the ignition is probably going to need everything that it can get from the magneto. I don't really want to have to make it a computer controlled system, but I may have to, just to make it work efficiently. That's yet to be seen, first I need to get mine running so I'll know what I'm dealing with.

I don't want to have to spend 20.00 a month on batteries and also have the chance of the batteries going dead on me during a night ride, when I'm 5 miles (or more) from home.
 
You can get away with this if you go to Wallmart or Target and get a generated on tire light [front & back] This should get you by, unless you take chances like me and I just love gooood people and come after the other ones!!!
 
Here is the concept of my design.

Use a lithium or nickel-metal hydride battery (preferably lithium) pack(s) that could maintain the lights for more than 20 hrs. full intensity using a halogen bulb for the headlight and LEDs for the tail just on a charge alone. The magneto would trickle charge the battery pack or provide supplemental power during full intensity use of the lights.

The head lamp that I have has four options, 1. full intensity halogen, 2. low intensity halogen, 3. continuous bright LEDs 4. flashing bright LEDs.

During daylight driving I could run the flashing LEDs both front and back from the power of the magneto, while still having enough current to provide a trickle charge to the battery pack and as an option be able to plug the charger into a wall outlet that could give absolute dead batteries a full charge in 1 to 3 hours.

It can be done. The trick here is to limit the amount of current to the charging system and allowing enough current for the ignition system. I'll have to get mine running and take some measurements to find out what the capabilities of the magneto and the demands of the ignition are before I can start putting it all together. I figure though that at idle speed the ignition is probably going to need everything that it can get from the magneto. I don't really want to have to make it a computer controlled system, but I may have to, just to make it work efficiently. That's yet to be seen, first I need to get mine running so I'll know what I'm dealing with.

I don't want to have to spend 20.00 a month on batteries and also have the chance of the batteries going dead on me during a night ride, when I'm 5 miles (or more) from home.

Great concept! I hope you can make it work. If you can I will be asking you for help in making one for me :D I can't make a lot of comments because like I said, I'm not that mechanically inclined but it does sound like it would work. I'm pulling for you man!... and keeping my fingers crossed!
 
Those tire-rubbing lights get overpowered at MBC speeds. However they may be a good basis for a wite-wire system. They have relatively cute and appropriate designs and take ordinary flashlight bulbs so you can go to radio shack and get different voltage and amp rated ones for your project. The cheapo c-battery headlights I had when I was a kid were homely and the plastic was always breaking from the weight of the batteries. Anyway.

I got a 9-LED, 3 AAA flashlight from advance auto on clearance for $2.50. Thought it would be fun to hack into a sort of daytime running light. I got it successfully mounted and wired up then when I fired up the motor half the LEDs stopped working. At idle one can really see the pulse action of the magneto. The LED instant on-off function made it look like a timing light strobe, which essentially it was. Wonder if a voltage spike wiped something out.

This advice of 6 volt bulbs is based on incandescent bulbs that average out the peakiness of the pulsing magneto. You may also rig something with capacitors and diodes but you want to be careful not to backfeed into the magneto as they seem rather fragile from reading here.

My lighting solution was a lead acid 12v 7 ah gel cell and 55 watt foglight for the front, and a rear 12 v red marker light from WM running off the white wire. It is brighter than you think, with the supposed 6-7.5v rating of the HT dynamo. Its brightness increases with engine RPM.

As far as going 10 mph, you may want to read up on "boost bottles" as my 100% stock motor with ~48 tooth sprocket sounds sickly going under 15 and really smooths out at a heavenly 24. And they vibrate like crazy that slow too.
 
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