Bike light project, anybody want to help?

**JRose** · 18th December 2012

Completed your survey.
And not sure if any of you have seen these yet, but they are certainly new to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOwRVN1KOYo

For their purpose (being seen) rather than lighting your path I think they look pretty good, also under £20.

**NathanM26** · 18th December 2012

Originally Posted by JRose

Completed your survey.
And not sure if any of you have seen these yet, but they are certainly new to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOwRVN1KOYo

For their purpose (being seen) rather than lighting your path I think they look pretty good, also under £20.

Nice!

**trebor** · 20th December 2012

Leedogs
Just completed your survey. The problem I have with lights, particularly front, is the clutter that builds up on the bars - Bell (yes!) computer, reflector etc. so the mounting method is something worth looking at I'd have thought.

**oldnick** · 23rd December 2012

I don't ride at night much so feel free to dismiss my thoughts but here they are...

A strand of fibre-optic cable from the rear light to the front of the bike as a tell tale (the rear light is more likely to save your life than the front IME) no power drain and cheap/durable.

A clamp that fits securely underneath the stem without spoiling the fit of Garmins and the like.

To adjust the beam from 'being seen' to 'seeing down the trail' a fore/aft slider (like on better Led Lenser torches) would be easy to adjust on the fly. I suggest calling this feature 'The Foreskin' for instant marketing appeal

If you need to model plastic parts quickly look into polymorph granules, very handy for prototyping.

Hope that helps, good luck with it, D&T is all that kept me sane at school.

**NathanM26** · 23rd December 2012

Originally Posted by oldnick

A strand of fibre-optic cable from the rear light to the front of the bike as a tell tale (the rear light is more likely to save your life than the front IME) no power drain and cheap/durable.

I can keep my front light in view when riding, but if my rear light were to fail I would have no idea. I'm just thinking out loud here but if you had a very thin wire that ran from the rear light to mid way along the top tube of the bike, with a very low power LED (or something like that) that enabled the user to know if the light was on or off?

Great minds oldnick, great minds...

**Bally** · 24th December 2012

Originally Posted by NathanM26

.

I couple of issues I have are:

1) The lights are bright when viewed head on, but they don't throw out much light to the side.
2) I can keep my front light in view when riding, but if my rear light were to fail I would have no idea.

1) Cateye do a front light with a 'cut out' at the side which helps sort this. My current light doesn't have such a cut out but my gloves illuminate suggesting the throw of light is quite acute
2) My rear light is attached to my seatpost and I can easily see it is still working by regularly looking (whilst riding) between my legs to check it is still flashing away and to judge the battery condition

**Leedogs** · 31st December 2012

Thanks for all of your input! I really would love to create something to solve all of these problems but I think, realistically, that I'm just not going to have the time to create a 'perfect' product. I'm sure that those of you who've studied DT at A Level will understand!

I'm going to make use of all of the data from my survey, as well as all of your suggestions for improvements, to produce a nice sheet about the problems with existing products. I'll put an image up when I'm done presenting it!

As I say, thanks a lot for all of your input about areas that could be improved, and once I'm back at school I'll be producing my product, which I hope can solve as many of your problems as possible! I'll put some pictures up when I'm done presenting my design work, just to show you what it looks like and what it does

The next stage is to produce a few prototypes (I'll aim to do 3!). I'm planning to send some out for you to have a go with if you're interested. I was thinking of getting 3 different people to test them. My plan's to post them out to someone who rides in the city, someone who's into road riding in the countryside on poorly lit roads, and someone who tends to do a lot of off roading at night. Send me a message if you'd like to help out and I'll let you know what the testing process involves, don't worry, it's nothing difficult!

Thanks again for your help and encouraging comments!