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#31
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Eyc headlight problem
On Wednesday, March 31, 2021 at 10:01:54 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/31/2021 12:17 AM, jbeattie wrote: On Tuesday, March 30, 2021 at 7:29:29 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 3/30/2021 2:59 PM, sms wrote: On 3/29/2021 5:02 PM, Sepp Ruf wrote: snip Hold on, Jeff, I'm sorry for the little misunderstanding. I only linked to Ulli Horlacher's latest work there, presented at de.rec.fahrrad on Fri, 26 Mar 2021 08:06:31 +0000 (UTC). Actually, I do not even agree with the concept of basing one's entire front lighting on one, single beam lamp, however expensive and reliable it may be. Most people in the U.S. with dynamo lights (and there aren't a lot of them!) also have some sort of battery powered light, even just an inexpensive USB-rechargeable light. I very much doubt that statement arose from anywhere but your imagination. You can't possibly have data to back it up. It's true there aren't a lot of U.S. cyclists with dyno lights. That's mainly because there aren't a lot of U.S. cyclists who use their bikes as anything but toys and exercise machines. There isn't the critical mass to form a target market for a light that's always available at the flick of a switch plus gives far better illumination than almost all battery lights. That's total nonsense. Pre-pandemic, I rode with dozens or hundreds of commuters every day, probably one out of thirty had a dyno -- if even that. You live in the bike commuting capitol of the U.S., but the total number of your commuters is still minuscule compared to the number of U.S. bicyclists. A company thinking about "What shall we market?" still looks on bike commuters, justifiably, as a tiny niche market. As a result, most cyclists never see a dyno system for sale. People prefer brighter, battery powered lights. People "prefer" what they are told to buy, which is what's on top of the counter when they wander into a bike shop. If shops had dyno systems available and explained their advantages, more Portlanders would buy them.. Every time I hear your story of cohorts admiring your bright light, I think WTF? I've got SP PD8 dyno hub driving a Luxos B, and its inadequate for night riding anywhere other than lighted streets. I can't explain that (and with you'd trade your system for my Oculus). I don't know if your problem is electrical (something wrong with the light), age-related vision problems (but I'm older than you) or just mis-perception, similar to the one in 50 motorists on yesterday's freeway drive who chose to blind everyone else by running their high beams. Again, on the ride where the Eyc gave trouble my friend had his battery light off most of the way because, as he said, it adds nothing to mine. Yet its what he uses when he does the ride solo. Now most (not all) of that ride is on a quiet MUP, but a dark MUP is pretty much the opposite of your "lighted streets." Part of your mis-perception might be ever-increasing expectations. In my view we've had a lot of that in bicycling, where a bike is "too heavy" if it's 20 pounds, where 9 rear cogs are suddenly way too few, where actually having to move a mechanical lever makes shifting too difficult, etc. You seem to have bought into the myth that anything under 250 lumens is too dim. Its nice having the dyno when all else fails, but it is not a serious primary light on the roads and in the weather I ride. I've talked about your wet night riding before, but IIRC you've never responded to the fact that on a really wet road, a motorist can't even see his car's headlights on the road. It's an easy to understand optical phenomenon, and it doesn't mean that you can't see obstacles. Adding excess lumens to that problem only bounces more down the road into the eyes of other road users. And yes, I ride with a battery "flasher" -- an L&M that pulses. It differentiates my solid beam from other solid beams, vis., cars and other bikes in two way facilities. Did you really have problems with that before you got a pulsing beam? I don't ride at night as much as when I was commuting, but I still have motorists waiting inordinate amounts of time to let me pass. I've never had a remotely close call. I wonder if you're experiencing a combination of "safety inflation" plus placebo effect. As in "All I know is, I've had far fewer flat tires since I bought my St. Christopher's medal! I'll never ride without it!" Keep praying. I've almost run into cyclists with super-strong headlights because they blend with the super-strong headlights of the cars behind them in two-way facilities next to a road -- which is part of my commute through south waterfront. It is way easier to see cyclists with a low-watt flasher or pulsing light. Bright flashers are a nuisance. I doubt you encounter these facilities or even a fraction of the cyclists encountered on my pre-pandemic commutes. And mix in pedestrians, trains, streetcars and buses (on-coming lights in parallel facilities) and other static light sources from buildings. A solid beam becomes light camouflage. I also know that my pulsing light makes me more conspicuous at night because I see other cyclists while driving, and a good, pulsing light is noticeable without being annoying. I have no idea what other drivers see, although Joerg is convinced cars stop for him because of his flasher. It may work -- with my L&M Seca 1400, which has a flasher visible from outer-space, I'll run that as punishment for car that appear to be creeping into traffic, but I only do that rarely because it even annoys me. I night ride on bikes other than my commuter, like my racing bike, and I can just move my battery light around. I'm not going to wire-up four or five bikes. My current night rides are almost entirely on bikes other than my commuter unless I'm going to pick up dinner on the way home, then I lug my dyno equipped commuter up into the hills and use my battery light on full power for the descent, many of which are dangerous even during the day because of the road surface. https://tinyurl.com/3spf5c4p Turn on Westwood and keep going up. Its hard holding on to the bars descending in daylight. https://tinyurl.com/3n3uvf8r -- Jay Beattie. |
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#32
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Eyc headlight problem
On 3/31/2021 2:23 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, March 31, 2021 at 10:01:54 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 3/31/2021 12:17 AM, jbeattie wrote: And yes, I ride with a battery "flasher" -- an L&M that pulses. It differentiates my solid beam from other solid beams, vis., cars and other bikes in two way facilities. Did you really have problems with that before you got a pulsing beam? I don't ride at night as much as when I was commuting, but I still have motorists waiting inordinate amounts of time to let me pass. I've never had a remotely close call. I wonder if you're experiencing a combination of "safety inflation" plus placebo effect. As in "All I know is, I've had far fewer flat tires since I bought my St. Christopher's medal! I'll never ride without it!" Keep praying. I've almost run into cyclists with super-strong headlights because they blend with the super-strong headlights of the cars behind them in two-way facilities next to a road -- which is part of my commute through south waterfront. It is way easier to see cyclists with a low-watt flasher or pulsing light. ... A solid beam becomes light camouflage. Ah, yes, Safety Inflation. Corrall the bicyclists into a bi-directional side track. http://www.copenhagenize.com/2014/06...cle-track.html Then convince them that they need headlights as bright as cars' to keep them safe. Now you can tell them that they also need lower wattage pulsing lights to distinguish them from the cars. Where does this folly end? I also know that my pulsing light makes me more conspicuous at night because I see other cyclists while driving, and a good, pulsing light is noticeable without being annoying. I have no idea what other drivers see, although Joerg is convinced cars stop for him because of his flasher. Jay, there must be a psychological study on this. You see a cyclist, and because you are a fan of pulsing lights, you assume you saw him _only_ because of that light. Joerg comes to a stop when a mountain lion crosses his path and is positive he stopped _only_ because of his favorite brand of brakes. Someone takes CBD oil and it's the _only_ reason he hasn't died of a heart attack or cancer or both. And of course, tens of thousands of bicyclists have had their lives saved by their helmets - when only 850 die, year after year. Pride of purchase (or pride of advocacy?) imposes a strong desire to confirm the wisdom of a person's choice. But while your cyclists are visible only because of a fashionable flavor of headlight, I see night cyclists who don't have such gimmicks. I night ride on bikes other than my commuter, like my racing bike, and I can just move my battery light around. I'm not going to wire-up four or five bikes. My current night rides are almost entirely on bikes other than my commuter unless I'm going to pick up dinner on the way home, then I lug my dyno equipped commuter up into the hills and use my battery light on full power for the descent, many of which are dangerous even during the day because of the road surface. https://tinyurl.com/3spf5c4p Turn on Westwood and keep going up. Its hard holding on to the bars descending in daylight. https://tinyurl.com/3n3uvf8r I'll admit again that your riding is more extreme than mine. It's also more extrme than most cyclists. But I have no problems seeing adequately up to 25 mph with my B&M dyno lights. If I did have a problem, I'd probably use my (caliper) brakes to slow to a safe speed. (You _sure_ you don't want to trade for the Oculus? It doesn't have to be an even trade.) -- - Frank Krygowski |
#33
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Eyc headlight problem
On 3/31/2021 11:23 AM, jbeattie wrote:
snip Keep praying. I've almost run into cyclists with super-strong headlights because they blend with the super-strong headlights of the cars behind them in two-way facilities next to a road -- which is part of my commute through south waterfront. It is way easier to see cyclists with a low-watt flasher or pulsing light. Bright flashers are a nuisance. I doubt you encounter these facilities or even a fraction of the cyclists encountered on my pre-pandemic commutes. And mix in pedestrians, trains, streetcars and buses (on-coming lights in parallel facilities) and other static light sources from buildings. A solid beam becomes light camouflage. I also know that my pulsing light makes me more conspicuous at night because I see other cyclists while driving, and a good, pulsing light is noticeable without being annoying. I have no idea what other drivers see, although Joerg is convinced cars stop for him because of his flasher. It may work -- with my L&M Seca 1400, which has a flasher visible from outer-space, I'll run that as punishment for car that appear to be creeping into traffic, but I only do that rarely because it even annoys me. I night ride on bikes other than my commuter, like my racing bike, and I can just move my battery light around. I'm not going to wire-up four or five bikes. My current night rides are almost entirely on bikes other than my commuter unless I'm going to pick up dinner on the way home, then I lug my dyno equipped commuter up into the hills and use my battery light on full power for the descent, many of which are dangerous even during the day because of the road surface. https://tinyurl.com/3spf5c4p Turn on Westwood and keep going up. Its hard holding on to the bars descending in daylight. https://tinyurl.com/3n3uvf8r If a bicycle company (I hesitate to call most name-brand bicycle companies "manufacturers") offered a dynamo wheel option on new bicycles as say a $50-75 upgrade at the time of purchase then I think they would be able to sell some decent dynamo lights. The cost to the bicycle manufacturer of an SP hub dynamo is $10-15 so a $50 upgrade would be about a break-even price. Brompton offers battery lighting, dynamo lighting, and no lighting models, though the models with lighting included aren't sold in the U.S.. For example, the M6L with no lighting is £1275, with battery lighting is £1350, and with dynamo lighting it's £1415. So £140 gets you both the dynamo wheel and the light set. To buy a dynamo wheel for a Brompton costs $195-390, not including lights. On my DaHon Speed TR, an SP dynamo-equipped wheel was only $100 (not an upgrade, a whole wheel) https://foldingbike.biz/Dahon-Deluxe-Front-Joule-11-Dynohub-wheel-Silver-20. A hub dynamo is a lot different accessory than fenders, a luggage rack, or fenders. Most people aren't going to take their existing wheel and rebuild it around a hub dynamo that they pay upwards of $100 for. The fact that so many people now have multiple bicycles is another issue of course. Spending $150+ for a dynamo and dynamo light on every bicycle is very costly, while a battery powered light can be easily moved around, perhaps a few extra mounting brackets are necessary depending on the light. At least in my area, another reason to eschew dynamo lights is the problem of "outrunning" your lights. I'm not talking about a 50MPH descent I'm talking about having to navigate unlit multi-use paths that are often the fastest and safest route because of the lack of traffic lights, stop signs, or intersections. Once I enter the trail system in Mountain View I can go a very long way, with minimal to no stops. I can get to Facebook, Google, and Intel, all on MUPs. Even though I could reach a higher peak speed on regular roads, the average speed is higher on the the trails. For a while, Breezer was selling some city bikes with dynamo hub front wheels but they've stopped doing that because people wanted better lights than could be powered by a hub dynamo. I don't know whatever happened to the plans for 12V hub dynamos. There are 12V bottle dynamos, but for whatever reason 12V hub dynamos never were marketed http://www.velovision.com/ftp-admin/VVArchive/www.velovisionmag.co.uk/showStory37a0.html?storynum=56. Maybe they realized that the cyclists that wanted more powerful lights had already moved on from dynamos and were not coming back, at least except for one cyclist in Ohio, and the marketing team decided that developing and manufacturing a product with such a minuscule TAM (total available market) was not in their best interest. Sorry to go on and on, but hopefully Frank now understands the issue better. |
#34
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Eyc headlight problem
On 3/31/2021 6:25 PM, sms wrote:
On 3/31/2021 11:23 AM, jbeattie wrote: snip Keep praying.Â* I've almost run into cyclists with super-strong headlights because they blend with the super-strong headlights of the cars behind them in two-way facilities next to a road -- which is part of my commute through south waterfront.Â* It is way easier to see cyclists with a low-watt flasher or pulsing light.Â* Bright flashers are a nuisance.Â* I doubt you encounter these facilitiesÂ* or even a fraction of the cyclists encountered on my pre-pandemic commutes. And mix in pedestrians, trains, streetcars and buses (on-coming lightsÂ* in parallel facilities) and other static light sources from buildings.Â* A solid beam becomes light camouflage. I also know that my pulsing light makes me more conspicuous at night because I see other cyclists while driving, and a good, pulsing light is noticeable without being annoying.Â* I have no idea what other drivers see, although Joerg is convinced cars stop for him because of his flasher.Â* It may work -- with my L&M Seca 1400, which has a flasher visible from outer-space, I'll run that as punishment for car that appear to be creeping into traffic, but I only do that rarely because it even annoys me. Â* I night ride on bikes other than my commuter, like my racing bike, and I can just move my battery light around.Â* I'm not going to wire-up four or five bikes.Â* My current night rides are almost entirely on bikes other thanÂ* my commuter unless I'm going to pick up dinner on the way home, then I lug my dyno equipped commuter up into the hills and use my battery light on full power for the descent, many of which are dangerous even during the day because of the road surface. https://tinyurl.com/3spf5c4pÂ* Turn on Westwood and keep going up.Â* Its hard holding on to the bars descending in daylight. https://tinyurl.com/3n3uvf8r If a bicycle company (I hesitate to call most name-brand bicycle companies "manufacturers") offered a dynamo wheel option on new bicycles as say a $50-75 upgrade at the time of purchase then I think they would be able to sell some decent dynamo lights. The cost to the bicycle manufacturer of an SP hub dynamo is $10-15 so a $50 upgrade would be about a break-even price. Brompton offers battery lighting, dynamo lighting, and no lighting models, though the models with lighting included aren't sold in the U.S.. For example, the M6L with no lighting is £1275, with battery lighting is £1350, and with dynamo lighting it's £1415. So £140 gets you both the dynamo wheel and the light set. To buy a dynamo wheel for a Brompton costs $195-390, not including lights. On my DaHon Speed TR, an SP dynamo-equipped wheel was only $100 (not an upgrade, a whole wheel) https://foldingbike.biz/Dahon-Deluxe-Front-Joule-11-Dynohub-wheel-Silver-20. A hub dynamo is a lot different accessory than fenders, a luggage rack, or fenders. Most people aren't going to take their existing wheel and rebuild it around a hub dynamo that they pay upwards of $100 for. The fact that so many people now have multiple bicycles is another issue of course. Spending $150+ for a dynamo and dynamo light on every bicycle is very costly, while a battery powered light can be easily moved around, perhaps a few extra mounting brackets are necessary depending on the light. At least in my area, another reason to eschew dynamo lights is the problem of "outrunning" your lights. I'm not talking about a 50MPH descent I'm talking about having to navigate unlit multi-use paths that are often the fastest and safest route because of the lack of traffic lights, stop signs, or intersections. Once I enter the trail system in Mountain View I can go a very long way, with minimal to no stops. I can get to Facebook, Google, and Intel, all on MUPs. Even though I could reach a higher peak speed on regular roads, the average speed is higher on the the trails. For a while, Breezer was selling some city bikes with dynamo hub front wheels but they've stopped doing that because people wanted better lights than could be powered by a hub dynamo. I don't know whatever happened to the plans for 12V hub dynamos. There are 12V bottle dynamos, but for whatever reason 12V hub dynamos never were marketed http://www.velovision.com/ftp-admin/VVArchive/www.velovisionmag.co.uk/showStory37a0.html?storynum=56. Maybe they realized that the cyclists that wanted more powerful lights had already moved on from dynamos and were not coming back, at least except for one cyclist in Ohio, and the marketing team decided that developing and manufacturing a product with such a minuscule TAM (total available market) was not in their best interest. Sorry to go on and on, but hopefully Frank now understands the issue better. Well, the I already knew the portion that was correct. The portions that were still incorrect were largely repeats of previous Scharfian posts. Nothing new there. Thanks, though, for the pointer to the (prototype?) SON 12V hub. As the article says, it's already possible to get 6 Watts out of a nominal 3 Watt dynamo, by simply wiring two headlights in series. I did that for a while, with a switch to run headlight A, or B, or both; and the same should be possible with a single headlight designed for that duty. But as with the rest of my experimenting, I stopped that experiment. For me, a decent dynamo and good LED dyno headlight have solved the lighting problem. I do find it satisfying that the person who has argued loudest against dynamo lights (even constructing a web page to post arguments without fear of rebuttal) now admits to using them. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#35
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Eyc headlight problem
sms wrote:
Sorry to go on and on, but hopefully Frank now understands the issue better. This sort of rhetoric might have been part of why you could not win reelection in Appleville. Others have long grasped the issues about 12 volt systems: In 2001, the 12V hub, literally weighed down by incandescent lamp physics in legal requirements to provide a rather high voltage already at low speeds, would have yielded 100 (source) halogen lumens from a geometrically complicated filament. But 90 lm could already be tweaked by serially running two 6V bulbs. Today, either a 2001 or a 2021 6V hub can yield more than 300 lm (net output) from the optically preferential LED, while a cheap $20 LED dyno lamp such as the Herrmans H-Black MR4 produces 120 lm, and a beam quality unheard of even in 2011. https://fahrradbeleuchtung-info.de/helligkeitsmessung-von-fahrradlampen |
#36
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Eyc headlight problem
On 3/31/2021 5:21 PM, Sepp Ruf wrote:
sms wrote: Sorry to go on and on, but hopefully Frank now understands the issue better. This sort of rhetoric might have been part of why you could not win reelection in Appleville. Could be, but I think the real reason was that a developer spent about $100,000 on the campaigns of two opponents. But I will try again next year, it's no big deal either way, it's essentially a volunteer position. My big accomplishments, bicycle-related, were pushing through a bicycle boulevard, protected bicycle lanes, and a new multi-use trail (under construction). The protected bicycle lanes have been wonderful. It wasn't that the unprotected bicycle lanes were dangerous, it was that they were constantly being blocked by errant vehicles and there was no way that the police could keep up with ticketing or towing. They aren't heavily used right now because the schools have not brought back students for in-person classes, but once that happens they will be used a lot https://goo.gl/maps/a8X5mehdKCrDi1BQ6. Others have long grasped the issues about 12 volt systems: In 2001, the 12V hub, literally weighed down by incandescent lamp physics in legal requirements to provide a rather high voltage already at low speeds, would have yielded 100 (source) halogen lumens from a geometrically complicated filament. But 90 lm could already be tweaked by serially running two 6V bulbs. Today, either a 2001 or a 2021 6V hub can yield more than 300 lm (net output) from the optically preferential LED, while a cheap $20 LED dyno lamp such as the Herrmans H-Black MR4 produces 120 lm, and a beam quality unheard of even in 2011. https://fahrradbeleuchtung-info.de/helligkeitsmessung-von-fahrradlampen The article about the 12V SON dynamo mentions that you can get 6 watts out of an existing 3W dynamo at high speeds. So presumably you can get 12 watts out of 6V dynamo at high speeds, but more importantly you can get 6 watts at lower speeds. "The obvious significance of this is that bike lights powered by dynamos could soon become seriously bright - perhaps bright enough to woo back some of those who have been tempted onto the new generation of high-power rechargeables." http://www.velovision.com/ftp-admin/VVArchive/www.velovisionmag.co.uk/showStory37a0.html?storynum=56 Of course you also have people like me, and apparently Jay, that recognize the benefits of dynamo powered lights and the benefits of battery powered lights, and the situations where each one has the advantage. Not many people in the U.S. have even heard of Herrmans lights. I have one of these https://herrmans.eu/products/front-lights-4147/dynamo-10038/h-black-pro-dynamo/#technical-data on my Dahon folder. Only 200 lumens but a nice beam pattern. It cost ¤63 from Bike24 in Germany. Also got some of the BBB Fueltank XL bottle cages from them (now discontinued). |
#37
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Eyc headlight problem
sms wrote:
snip I don't know whatever happened to the plans for 12V hub dynamos. There are 12V bottle dynamos, but for whatever reason 12V hub dynamos never were marketed http://www.velovision.com/ftp-admin/VVArchive/www.velovisionmag.co.uk/showStory37a0.html?storynum=56. Come on now, Steven, dust off your EE textbooks. A typical hub dynamo transmits 3 Watts of power over a distance of maybe 3 feet. If you wanted to double, triple or even transmit 10 times as much power, you don’t need to change the voltage, just change the internal design of the dynamo. The obvious solution would be a 3 phase AC generator, with a rectifier/buck converter inside that puts out a constant 6 V with a much higher current limit. Now, inside the dynamo, there may be arguments to be made for a higher internal voltage before the regulator, but a 6V output should be good up to the point where nobody would buy one because it would sap too much energy from the rider. |
#38
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Eyc headlight problem
sms wrote:
On 3/31/2021 5:21 PM, Sepp Ruf wrote: sms wrote: Sorry to go on and on, but hopefully Frank now understands the issue better. This sort of rhetoric might have been part of why you could not win reelection in Appleville. Could be, but I think the real reason was that a developer spent about $100,000 on the campaigns of two opponents. But I will try again next year, it's no big deal either way, it's essentially a volunteer position. My big accomplishments, bicycle-related, were pushing through a bicycle boulevard, protected bicycle lanes, and a new multi-use trail (under construction). The protected bicycle lanes have been wonderful. It wasn't that the unprotected bicycle lanes were dangerous, it was that they were constantly being blocked by errant vehicles and there was no way that the police could keep up with ticketing or towing. They aren't heavily used right now because the schools have not brought back students for in-person classes, but once that happens they will be used a lot https://goo.gl/maps/a8X5mehdKCrDi1BQ6. Others have long grasped the issues about 12 volt systems: In 2001, the 12V hub, literally weighed down by incandescent lamp physics in legal requirements to provide a rather high voltage already at low speeds, would have yielded 100 (source) halogen lumens from a geometrically complicated filament. But 90 lm could already be tweaked by serially running two 6V bulbs. Today, either a 2001 or a 2021 6V hub can yield more than 300 lm (net output) from the optically preferential LED, while a cheap $20 LED dyno lamp such as the Herrmans H-Black MR4 produces 120 lm, and a beam quality unheard of even in 2011. https://fahrradbeleuchtung-info.de/helligkeitsmessung-von-fahrradlampen The article about the 12V SON dynamo mentions that you can get 6 watts out of an existing 3W dynamo at high speeds. So presumably you can get 12 watts out of 6V dynamo at high speeds, but more importantly you can get 6 watts at lower speeds. "The obvious significance of this is that bike lights powered by dynamos could soon become seriously bright - perhaps bright enough to woo back some of those who have been tempted onto the new generation of high-power rechargeables." http://www.velovision.com/ftp-admin/VVArchive/www.velovisionmag.co.uk/showStory37a0.html?storynum=56 Of course you also have people like me, and apparently Jay, that recognize the benefits of dynamo powered lights and the benefits of battery powered lights, and the situations where each one has the advantage. Not many people in the U.S. have even heard of Herrmans lights. I have one of these https://herrmans.eu/products/front-lights-4147/dynamo-10038/h-black-pro-dynamo/#technical-data on my Dahon folder. Only 200 lumens but a nice beam pattern. It cost €63 from Bike24 in Germany. Also got some of the BBB Fueltank XL bottle cages from them (now discontinued). It certainly appears that German regulations are impairing progress in bicycle dynamo lighting. I’d be sorely tempted to abandon all the current standards and go to a DC 4 wire system (a pair for power and a pair for comm), with a voltage that accommodates modern Li Ion batteries and modern electronics. 5 V, 3 A could be a nice place to start. A standard connector, an existing simple comm protocol and some sort of intelligent power management scheme could allow dynamo hubs, batteries, lights and accessories to all plug and play together. |
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Eyc headlight problem
On Wed, 31 Mar 2021 18:27:07 -0700, sms
wrote: My big accomplishments, bicycle-related, were pushing through a bicycle boulevard, protected bicycle lanes, and a new multi-use trail (under construction). The protected bicycle lanes have been wonderful. It wasn't that the unprotected bicycle lanes were dangerous, it was that they were constantly being blocked by errant vehicles and there was no way that the police could keep up with ticketing or towing. Nicely done. In the People's Republic of Santa Cruz, the "pedestrian" bridge over the San Lorenzo River is routinely blocked by police, parks, state, and other vehicle using it as a short-cut when Hwy 1 traffic is at a standstill. The vehicles manage to squeeze over the bridge with about 1ft clearance on each side. That means that everyone has to walk or ride ahead or behind the vehicles as they slowly and carefully crawl across the bridge. I suspect that some oversized vehicle will eventually try to make it across and create an Ever Given style blockage. I suggest that you remember this for when the next bicycle trail is proposed and try to specify some kind of vehicle barrier or minefield to discourage non-emergency vehicles from using it as a roadway. -- Jeff Liebermann PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272 Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
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Eyc headlight problem
On Thu, 1 Apr 2021 02:01:47 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote: It certainly appears that German regulations are impairing progress in bicycle dynamo lighting. I’d be sorely tempted to abandon all the current standards and go to a DC 4 wire system (a pair for power and a pair for comm), with a voltage that accommodates modern Li Ion batteries and modern electronics. 5 V, 3 A could be a nice place to start. A standard connector, an existing simple comm protocol and some sort of intelligent power management scheme could allow dynamo hubs, batteries, lights and accessories to all plug and play together. Agreed, mostly. I've been proposing a similar standardized electrical system for bicycles in this newsgroups for many years. The consensus seems to be that it's not needed. So, the likely source of a standard will come from the eBike faction, which does need it, and can make best use of it. While I like the simplicity of a 4 wire system, I'm a bit more ambitious for what can be done with it. In my ideal system, it's a data bus similar to what is commonly in use in automobiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_bus In theory, everything that can be electrically operated can participate. Headlight, tail light, brakes, performance sensors, speedometer, odometer, smartphone, GPS, rear view camera, crash recorder, theft alarm, power management, trainer interface, coffee warmer, etc. Lots of details would need to hammered out, but I think the benefits of having a standard interface and power/data bus would be worth the time and effort. -- Jeff Liebermann PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272 Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
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