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My buddy hooked me up with this really cool vintage combo Tanita headlight / horn. The light is not very bright. Do any of you guys have a recommendation for a brighter bulb?
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Having motorized my Higgins in the style of an early motorbike, I wanted to make an old-school-looking fake carbide headlamp to match.
I made the body of the headlamp from cutting down a stainless steel toilet brush holder I got from Walmart. The vent is the top of stainless sunglasses case, with holes drilled and eyelets inserted in the holes. The fake lampfuel tank is a 'Senseo' tin (some kind of coffee pod or other) that I picked up at a thrift store. It's electric; I keep the batteries in the lampfuel tank, and the switch is on one end.
The guts are a large-ish flashlight reflector, and I made a lexan lense and fitted it in with a large rubber o-ring From about 10 feet away it looks pretty genuine.
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LED conversion to rusty shell
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Ok.. the 10+ year old niterider minewt mini retrofit wasn't bright enough for my needs. Fit a new Cree xml led in the reflector housing along with soldering in a new 18650 battery. Very happy with the results.
http://s38.photobucket.com/user/catalystmb8/media/Mobile Uploads/IMG_1222_zpsj8dc9asl.jpg.html] [/URL]

http://s38.photobucket.com/user/catalystmb8/media/Mobile Uploads/IMG_1221_zps3kkcplsl.jpg.html] [/URL]

http://s38.photobucket.com/user/catalystmb8/media/Mobile Uploads/IMG_1223_zpsgz71tjgk.jpg.html] [/URL]

http://s38.photobucket.com/user/catalystmb8/media/Mobile Uploads/IMG_1226_zpsvcrt4rff.jpg.html] [/URL]

http://s38.photobucket.com/user/catalystmb8/media/Mobile Uploads/IMG_1233_zpsmioudejd.jpg.html] [/URL]

Strange pattern due to the size of the reflector but it's bright. I let it run to check the burn time on a fully charged battery, at two and a half hours it was still going strong when I shut it down.
 
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You can get LED bulbs that will go right in, zero modifications needed.
I got an LED light and it helped a little but not much. The problem is that the chrome on the inside of the light is dull. Gonna canabalize a cheap flash light for the reflectors to see if it helps.


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I found this old light at a tractor show a while back.
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It had a 6 volt bulb in it. I found an LED conversion bulb. I had a 12v battery pack made up. The bulb receptor was for a 1154 bulb the LED was 1157, so I removed the OG receptor and used the demo receptor that came with the new bulb.
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test connection.
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This light and battery pack will probably go on an Elgin bike I'm redoing.


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I found an LED conversion bulb. I had a 12v battery pack made up
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Nice find , i gonna try to get one , my light bearly shine enought to get noticed , this should help :thumbsup:
 
Nice find , i gonna try to get one , my light bearly shine enought to get noticed , this should help :thumbsup:

The LED came from Walmart which I try to avoid.


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I found this old light at a tractor show a while back.
1ebe6e84b94c73651d70a06abffcf1c9.jpg
a195b23dc701060977b7d90630fa1f15.jpg

It had a 6 volt bulb in it. I found an LED conversion bulb. I had a 12v battery pack made up. The bulb receptor was for a 1154 bulb the LED was 1157, so I removed the OG receptor and used the demo receptor that came with the new bulb.
8d4530ee70892c634733cbcae6da43fd.jpg
352282b5d1ca858d07e1101299340e28.jpg
64d92015ff0cad21a87627adbacb3bb6.jpg
test connection.
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a8d2cee5326d60dbafc18d177110c391.jpg
3411d8e7adb948af4b0ae412a6bab488.jpg

This light and battery pack will probably go on an Elgin bike I'm redoing.


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Very cool indeed
 
I'm using an old Dietz tractor light for a headlight, and a bullet style marker light for a taillight. I run them off of a 2250mah 3s lipo battery.
 

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Mazda 3 projector light and a 12V, 30W H7 LED light for the headlight, a 12V trailer brake light inside the larger cocktail shaker rocket nozzle and a 3/4" 12V LED marker light in the mixer measuring cup.

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Prewar light accessory LED 12V cookie press conversion.


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I made the shift lever the switch for my light:



I bought a 1975 Schwinn Varsity at a garage sale to take apart/clean/put back together. The pinch bolt for the front derailleur broke when I was putting it back together, so I just left it off and rode it on one chainring. I found another bolt that would work, but I liked the big shift levers and thought it would be cool to use the shifter as a switch for a big retro light.
I found a light, replaced the bulb with leds and coin cell batteries. The switch worked by running two wires out to the shift lever with the ends exposed next to each other, the shift lever had tape over it to insulate it, then a small piece of metal on it to close the gap between the wires. Better explanation and pictures here
Right now I'm working on a way to use the actual shift cable attached to a switch inside the light.
 

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