Light Ideas and set-ups

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The saddle set ups thread got me thinking about doing something similar for head and tail-light ideas. I'm looking for some way to do some cool head and tail-lights and since I'm into this hobby to be creative I don't really want to just buy parts. Well that, and the fact the the only cruiser light that the LBS has is a "Kruiser King" light that looks ok, but has a crappy switch and is not LED for $25. Too much for the crap quality.

Here is my idea for some tail-lights: Checker Auto "Clearance Lights". Come in three colors red, amber and blue. $4 each. They open up without tools and have lots of space to change over to an LED with internal battery set up. The bracket is actually the ground side of the light and it will mount perfectly with my new fender bracket as shown in pic two.

The light:

bike22hx8.jpg


The proposed mounting scheme:

dvc00002yw9.jpg



Post up your own ideas for lights.
 
Haven't got one yet but alot of motorcycle shops sell a Maltese cross tail light for around $20.00. I'm gonna grab one for a bike I'll be working on this summer. Also gonna get a couple for my trailer. Check the motorcycle supply companies, tail lights are about the only reasonably priced things they sell. You might have to rewire and re-light them. Check out some of the ratrod car mags for ideas also.
 
MagicRat: Did those lights come with the eye brow trim?

Chainsaw: they have some pretty cool looking lenses at Mooneyes. I just can't get a feel for them
online. I'm more of a touchy-feely shopper.
 
I've been looking at light ideas here for a while; I want to fabricate a Spaceliner-type light to do a retro treatment on a newer beach cruiser. I really like the 20-LED light that october used to put together his Rollfast, but I haven't had luck finding one locally and I'm a cheapskate about paying shipping when I can avoid it. So the other day I found this in Ollie's Outlet for $5.99:

ledlt01.jpg


ledlt02.jpg


The shape of the lens is kinda cool, and I like that it can be turned on either "low beam" or "high beam":

ledlt03.jpg


ledlt04.jpg


ledlt05.jpg


And it even has this cool red emergency light that can be used as a taillight:

ledlt06.jpg


The whole mess operates on 4 AA batteries. What I DON'T like is the switch setup. It has one button that you keep clicking--first click is low beam, second click is high beam, third click is turns off the white lights and turns on the red one, fourth click makes the red one flash, fifth click turns the whole thing off again. Way too many clicks to cycle through... I'll have to see if I can take it all apart and wire the pieces to a couple separate switches...

--rick
 
Here's the light I did on my RRBBO 1 bike. It was made from a little metal Easter bucket and a cheap lantern type flash light both bought at Walmart. The lens of the lantern fit perfectly for in the bucket. Wired in a battery holder and a toggle switch from Radio Shack. Bent a piece of metal for a bracket. I made 2 lights, 1 in blue and 1 in black.

headlight.jpg


tank.jpg
 
Crash,I got it just like that,but I'm gutting it for a LED conversion

Park,Roadpro is the brand I get mine from.They have a cool Spaceliner looking small tailight #RP 3113
 
locojoe: that is what I've been thinking of doing. I'm trying to find something with the right kind of curves
to turn into a light the way you did.I like the look of yours, very old-timey.
 
How do you get the right kinda battery power to say a rear red light? I see that the one posted on here is not hooked to anything.
 
Like maybe an old flashlite set up or something like that? hide it someplace then...
 
yup, or make a battery tube er sumthin, if it was a tank bike id hid it in there, bullet light usually have space inside for batteries too. are you refering to your missile bike? cause theres battery mounts in that.
 
Lighting the bike is another thing fun to play with.
On my "Beer Bike" I used beer cans for the headlight and taillight. I built brackets from aluminum strap, to mount the cans (heineken for the headlight and budlight aluminum bottle for the taillight) to the bike. Then cut foam rubber donuts, slightly larger than the inside of the can and slightly smaller than a small LED flashlight used for the light source ( the LED flashlights I use have push button on/off on the end of the flashlight) . Cut a hole the bottom of the can so the on/off can be reached. Cut a hole in the can to fit the lense ( I made the lenses from lexan dowl rod, headlight lense held in the can with a piece a double sided sticky tape, the taillight held in place with the foam donuts). Put the donuts in the can, put the flashlight in the donuts, put the lense on the can, bolt it to the bike. There you have unique lights for the bike. Using the LED flash lights give you good light with long battery life, the way to go.
beer_and_sled.jpg

beerbike2.jpg

On my lady friends bike the "Star Chief" I used heavy plastic cups with the center of a rattle can lid loaded up with 8 red LEDs inside each cup. Her 57 chevy hood bullits with long allthread went through the cups into the "Tag-Along" ( thats what we call our license plate boxes, I make stuff from license plates, I was building these boxes before they were made popular by littleearth and others) where the battery pack and on/off switch are located. I even made an LED arangement for the headlight using 3 whitelight LEDS. She loves it.

star2.jpg

LEDs are the way to light the bike, good light with longer battery life.
Dangerous Dan
 
I'm still playing with the set-up for the bullet tail light, that's why its not hooked up yet. I'm trying to decide if I want one or two lights and how to wire them. Radio Shack has superbright red LEDs for about three bucks each that only run off of 2.4V versus 12V for the bulb thats in there now. That means I can wire in some "N" cell battery packs and a switch into the light or run a battery pack under the seat with the wiring run through the tubing.

one choice is quick and easy and will cost about $8 more. The other will cost about the same, but take more time and I'll have to dissasemble the bike for a while. Decisions, decisions...
 
bigred: yep thats why I figured I'd go ahead and get it, even if it didn't work out it would only be $4. turns out it will take almost nothing to mount and only a few bucks more to make it look really good and be very functional. now if I can only find a headlight version...
 
PRNDL,

is that a powerglide reference?

the light i used came from a local discount store, but i saw the same light in different packaging,in the camping section of K-mart... :wink:

oct.
 
october said:
PRNDL,

is that a powerglide reference?

the light i used came from a local discount store, but i saw the same light in different packaging,in the camping section of K-mart... :wink:

oct.
Click to expand...

yep... Powerglide. there was an episode of Mama's Family where they tried to teach Mama to drive, and she looked at the dash and said "What's a prindle?" I thought it was hilarious. Also, my avatar is a pic of the ParkRNDL on the dash of my '65 Impala...

Kmart, huh? I tried everyplace around here BUT Kmart. Looks like I'll make a stop on the way home sometime this week... that $6 light I showed in my previous post is WAY more complicated on the inside than I thought. Was yours a simple straighforward cut-some-wires-and-solder-in-batteries-and-a-switch kind of deal?

--rick
 

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