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Adding front lights

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jagir
  • Start date Start date
J

Jagir

Guest
Got my hands on some of these bicycle headlights and I have been toying with the idea of adding them to my GS400 once I get the electrical all sorted (either bad ground, bad wiring somewhere, stator issues or some of all of this).

these Nitehawk lights run off a 6 volt, 4000 milliamp NiMh battery, but I am wondering about adapting them to run in conjunction with the headlight on my bike. They have superbright LED lights and are small enough that they could be tucked in somewhere inconspicuous, but bright enough to illuminate well. They are also free/dirt cheap.

I'll be tucking into the Stator Papers and going over my ride this winter and just wonder if I should keep this mod in mind, or if I should clear that space in my noggin for some other hair-brained scheme.

thoughts?
 
i bolted a pair of small (1 1/2" wide) fog lights onto the nameplate piece under the headlight on my 650gl. it was a bit rusty anyway so i didn't mind drilling it. mounted a miniature switch on the lower side of the headlight bucket (that was less than perfect also). kind of an experiment.

they add quite a bit of light to the side of the road where the deer often are before they jump in front of you. i got high-beamed once by an approaching car, which i considered bad form (ya know, they being all wrapped up safely in their deer protected cage and all). i will re aim them a bit lower and more to the sides though i think, and only use them out on the open road at night.

anyway, i think extra lights are worthwhile sometimes, but not those locomotive extra blinding beacons some fags have on their you-know-whatleys.
 
:lol: I don't know about the fag machines but make sure you check you have enough power to run your fancy lights (suspect you will if they are LED).

Where are you getting them free/dirt cheap? Can I have some? :D
 
salty_monk said:
:lol: I don't know about the fag machines but make sure you check you have enough power to run your fancy lights (suspect you will if they are LED).

Where are you getting them free/dirt cheap? Can I have some? :D
Click to expand...

Nitehawk has gone out of business and i work for a company that used to sell them so there are a couple kicking around.

I don't think that having enough power will be a problem rather, the right kind of power. Because it is a 6 volt system, I don't know what needs to be done to rig them into the system. Any help in this department would be appreciated.
 
Nah, impossible - you better give them to me to run on my mountain bike! :D

How many amps does it use? If it were me I'd be looking for a 12v cigarette lighter adapter on Ebay that runs 6v then canabalise the internals & mount them into my own "control" box.

http://cgi.ebay.com/XM-Car-Truck-Po...wItemQQptZSatellite_Radio?hash=item33571cf0bd

http://cgi.ebay.com/1000mA-1A-Car-P...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item33561c0a8d

http://cgi.ebay.com/2000mA-Car-Powe...er_MP3_Player_Accessories?hash=item45ee68c317

If they'll run at 5v (suspect lumen output will be reduced significantly) then your choice is greater as ipod, blackberry & anything else that can charge off a USB port has a 5v charger.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1000mA-1A-5V-ca...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_2?hash=item4147f9fdf0
http://www.bedoxinc.com/12vdcauplto5.html

Dan :)
 
hook them together, in series.
you will have to observe polarity as they are diodes after all.
 
hey! blop blop looky heere!

just wanted to show how i mounted my fog lights. like i said the parts i drilled were already kinda beat, if they were nice i think would've found somewhere else to mount them. i ran an extra power wire up from the fuse block (there is an extra fuse on a lot of gs's) into the headlight bucket. those diodes use so little power i'd just run them off the high beam wire so there'd be less chance of being scolded by other drivers.
 
HOw many watts are this things? I also want to add lights to my 650GLD. Changed the bucket lightblulb for a 50% brighter bosch H4. It is brighter, but the optics are very poor, so the light does not get far enough. At least not as good as my wife's Yamaha ybr250 (ys250 for us since we get the Brazilian version). I can get small lights like those, but they are rated 55W.
 
salty_monk said:
Nah, impossible - you better give them to me to run on my mountain bike! :D

How many amps does it use? If it were me I'd be looking for a 12v cigarette lighter adapter on Ebay that runs 6v then canabalise the internals & mount them into my own "control" box.

http://cgi.ebay.com/XM-Car-Truck-Po...wItemQQptZSatellite_Radio?hash=item33571cf0bd

http://cgi.ebay.com/1000mA-1A-Car-P...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item33561c0a8d

http://cgi.ebay.com/2000mA-Car-Powe...er_MP3_Player_Accessories?hash=item45ee68c317

If they'll run at 5v (suspect lumen output will be reduced significantly) then your choice is greater as ipod, blackberry & anything else that can charge off a USB port has a 5v charger.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1000mA-1A-5V-ca...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_2?hash=item4147f9fdf0
http://www.bedoxinc.com/12vdcauplto5.html

Dan :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions. I may make them removable so I can also use them on my non-motorized ride too. If you really a set, I'll let you know what I come up with.

The battery reads 4000 mh (I think, it could be milliamps?) It's a 6 volt system.

So what I am reading is that I can run the internals from a 12-6 volt charger (from the headlight) to these two lights in succession?

I may even have one of those adapters lying around...
If not, there is a great electronic shop in town. What is the device that I would be looking for? A ' voltage reducer' something like a reg/rec? 12volt to 6 volt? is amperage important?

Sorry about the simplistic nature of my questions, I've never had to deal with such things, but now that my stator is acting up...
 
Jagir said:
The battery reads 4000 mh (I think, it could be milliamps?) It's a 6 volt system.
Click to expand...
Any chance it reads 4000 mAh? That would be milliamp hour.

Jagir said:
So what I am reading is that I can run the internals from a 12-6 volt charger (from the headlight) to these two lights in succession?
Click to expand...
If you run them in series you wouldn't need to adapt anything. (6v+6v=12v)
 
If that's milliamps it's 4 amps so 4A x 6v = 24watts. That sounds kind of high for an LED...

Yes I would love a set if there are any going :)
 
derwood said:
hook them together, in series.
you will have to observe polarity as they are diodes after all.
Click to expand...

That is it. When wire 2 of them up in series and apply 12 volts to them, each light only gets 6 volts. To hook it up in series connect one positive lead to the negative lead of the other light. Now tape up the wire. You will have a positive and a negative wire that are mot connected to anything. Now think of the pair as a single 12 volt light, and hook it up as you would any 12 volt light.

Dont worry about the battery rating it is completely irrelevant. If you want to figure out how much power the lights will consume it just takes a little math. You will need an ohm meter. After you have the two attached to each other in series, and before you apply power to them, measure the resistance in ohms, with the ohm meter. Divide the ohms of resistance into the volts. Dont use 12 for the volts, because the system will be at about 14 volts when the engine is on. So say the lights have .25 ohms of resistance. 14 devided by 2.5 = 5.6, so it would need 5.6 amps to operate. The amperage should be much lower, that is just an example of how to work the formula.
 
Texasgs said:
That is it. When wire 2 of them up in series and apply 12 volts to them, each light only gets 6 volts. To hook it up in series connect one positive lead to the negative lead of the other light. Now tape up the wire. You will have a positive and a negative wire that are mot connected to anything. Now think of the pair as a single 12 volt light, and hook it up as you would any 12 volt light.

Dont worry about the battery rating it is completely irrelevant. If you want to figure out how much power the lights will consume it just takes a little math. You will need an ohm meter. After you have the two attached to each other in series, and before you apply power to them, measure the resistance in ohms, with the ohm meter. Divide the ohms of resistance into the volts. Dont use 12 for the volts, because the system will be at about 14 volts when the engine is on. So say the lights have .25 ohms of resistance. 14 devided by 2.5 = 5.6, so it would need 5.6 amps to operate. The amperage should be much lower, that is just an example of how to work the formula.
Click to expand...

Thanks, this is what i was looking for. It may take some time as I am picking away at a stator replacement at the same time, but will post pictures when i get to it.

thanks again
 
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