Home-made headlight

[Warner]

A couple of questions, if I may...
1) What size charger do you guys use and how long to fully recharge? Cost?
2) Do you think a dynamo (either hub or add-on) could be used to keep the battery somewhat charged on the go?
WC

The charger I bought is 1000ma I believe.....and I have NO idea how long it would take to charge a fully dead battery. There's probably a formula for that on one of the battery sites that I posted above. As far as a dynamo, I'm sure something could be rigged up to work....there would be some circuitry involved though, I'm sure. It's not worth it to me. I'd rather just clip two leads onto the battery and close the garage door.

Warner

 

[SirJakesus]

I bought a 12vdc bottle dynamo a few months ago but haven't hooked it up to my system. When I do I don't plan on rigging up any electronics to make sure I don't overcharge the battery, I'm mostly going to use it for extended run time and it should be able to recharge the battery when the basic lighting is running during the daytime.
As far as chargers go you can buy automatic SLA chargers that monitor voltage and drop to a low trickle charge once the battery is full. I bought one of these since I didn't feel like boiling my battery by mistake if I left it on too long or just needing to pull out the multimeter all the time to check exact voltage. I have a voltage meter built into my electrical system but I wouldn't trust it to be accurate enough for charging the battery exactly to the top. I mostly installed it just so I could tell when I was about to over-discharge the battery to avoid damage and sulfation.

 

[Warner]

For the record (and I posted this in another area here on the site), I rode my bike to work on Monday (20 miles in 50 minutes) and I left the headlight on the entire time. It appeared to be just as bright after being on for 50 minutes as it did when I first turned it on. I charged the battery again before turning the headlight on again - didn't want to run the battery down to nothing, but I may not even bother with the dimmer if the battery lasts an hour no problem....I don't really need it to last longer than that.

Warner

 

[SirJakesus]

7ah with a 55w light should definitely last an hour for you.