Why wouldnt this work - Lighting

[dwsutton]

Currently I have a 6v light run straight off the engine. Works pretty well but not the brightest. Im wondering if something like this could work -

A small 6 volt rechargable battery pack connected to the engine then off that an LED light for front and rear. Tou could construct the battery pack possibly from rechargable AA bats.

Would something like this work ? Ive been pondering this - how to use the voltage from the bike in a better way.

 

[rjwenzel]

Yes

I was thinking the same thing. If you picked up a couple of LED lights (like down at the 99c store) and repackaged them yourself, you could rig up your own and it wouldn't draw much juice . . . and I wouldn't think that it would be hard to do. A battery pack would power that for quite a long time. How are you powering off the engine?

 

[duivendyk]

I am an electrical engineer and in the know about LED's,you could profit from reading my post "Lowdown on LED's" which contains useful info.I think what you are considering is certainly possible in principle and I may be able to help you in getting something built along these lines.If I myself had a setup like you, it would be pretty easy, but being not a fan of HT engines although I can appreciate your motivation,so I'm sort of up the creek without a canoe,but equipped with a paddle,or rather my electrical smarts.
The trick is to come up with a scheme that gets the 6 V battery charged without affecting engine performance unduly, secondly how to run your LED's from the battery without killing them( LED's are 2.5 to3.5 Volt devices and hooking them up directly to a 6 volt battery is a prescription for trouble, two in series across 6V will probably work OK ,so that's not the main problem.
It would be very helpful if I could get a better idea what that white wire source is like,electrically speaking.If I had that info I'm pretty sure could come up with a fairly simple circuit to stick between it and the battery that anybody with a soldering iron could build to accomplish your objective,but without a multimeter Volt/Amp/Ohms, preferably not a digital one -- the ignition circuit interference of the HT engine is likely to mess these up--- I would just have to take a stab at it & hope for the best.Let me know if you have any gear, some basic electrical smarts would be helpful too ,but not really essential.Let me know if you are game.

 

[dwsutton]

Thanks ! Ill first measure the voltage coming off the white wire. Right now it is powering a 6v lamp on all the time the engine is running with no problem. I have purchased a small 6 V motorcycle battery that I was planning on connecting to the white wire to keep it charged. Ill let you know when I get the result of the voltage measurement. I would love to go LED powered by 6V.

D

 

[wildemere]

The HT engine outputs 6v AC at about half an amp.

Its about 6v at idle climbing to over 8 or 9v at speed, this of course drops when a load is connected.

Mine measured 7.5v with a 500mA light bulb connected.

 

[duivendyk]

LED system

OK fine,the voltage at the white wire is an AC voltage!!.Put your meter on ac,Is it a digital meter?,hopefully not,other wise twist your metering leads together (cuts down on interference from magnetic fields) and put your meter as far as possible from the bike,to reduce possible interference.
Measure voltage at idle speed and at running speed with light disconnected. Also measure resistance to ground (between white and black wire) with engine off and nothing connected to white wire and then get back to me.Then we will take it from there.Do you intend to use a 6 V SLA battery?I just reraid your post what is the Amphr capacity of this battery you intend to use ?