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Flashing LED Lights for Bicycle

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WooferHound:
Unfortunately my Bicycle was stolen last week. It was hiding it behind some bushes in front of the house, but somebody knew it was there and got it. I had a lock on the bike but wasn't using it.

I had installed the Solar panel onto the back of the bike and had working lights in the front for a coupla months. Had wiring installed for the Tail & Marker lights but had not installed the LEDs yet so wires were sticking out everywhere. The night before, I had worked on the front axle and put it all back together without grease or oil. The rear brakes had just stopped working. While it sucks to lose that bike, I am happy that it was in poor condition when they got it. Originally purchased at a garage sale for $25, but had $75 of puncture proof tires and $50 baskets on it.

The stolen bike was a 27 inch Road Bike and not made for the Inner City riding that I am doing almost daily. On Craigslist I found a 26 inch mountain bike with Road Tires on it, Perfect for jumping curbs and fast speeds. It was an older bike but has lots of New working parts on it, plus the guy gave me a buncha spare parts and a pair of innertubes. Got it for $150 and rode it 2 miles home. I've installed bike locks in it's parking spot behind the bushes and plan to put Motion Detector alarms in the area too.

So now it's time to Trick Out the new bike with Solar lighting, Saddlebag baskets, and a Bike computer speedometer. The baskets are on order and I've picked out a fancy bicycle computer that has a thermometer on it.

The Solar Lighting looks like it will be much easier to make now that Solar Charged Power Banks are cheaply available on eBay. I have ordered this one that can hold a couple of 18650 batteries and supply a constant unswitched 5 vdc output ...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2W-Solar-Panel-Charger-for-1-2-Section-18650-Battery-Phone-Charging-Charger/312419337228
This is almost already made compared to the one on the other bike. Will need to weatherproof it a little bit. Has plenty of room for the minimal electronics that will need to be added. Plus it can charge my phone too.

WooferHound:
Today, I received the Solar Powered USB Power Bank that I had ordered a few weeks ago.



Tested it a bit and in almost Full Sun the panel puts out 6 volts at a short circuit current of 350ma, so about 2 watts



The Solar power goes through a diode straight to the battery and if left alone it will badly overcharge the battery. Have some 4056 charge controllers ordered to fix this problem.



It will hold 1 or 2 batteries in parallel. One 18650 battery is plenty to power the planned bike lighting for about 6 hours, So I'll only use 1 in there. I tested the 5v USB output and my phone will charge from it. But that little boost converter will probably be removed as it isn't needed.

bj:
  You've got mail

WooferHound:
I was waiting for the TP4056 Charge Controllers to arrive before finishing the Solar Bike Lighting, Then they got here while I was working a large show over the weekend. But today was a day off so I finished out the power box then installed it all on the bike.



First pic is the Power Box fully finished but without the solar panel cover.
The blue module (top right) is the Lithium Ion 18650 charger module. it also has over\under charge protection on it.
The battery compartment is covered with aluminum foil to help reflect heat away. It can hold 2 batteries but only 1 should be plenty.
The 2 power switches are on the far left, very small and hard to see. One switch is for the white Headlight, a 1w LED at 300ma. The other switch is everything else, 14 LEDs all over the bike, about 300ma in all.
The small terminal strip on the far right is the Switched power. All LED dropping resisters are here and connect to the outgoing wires.
Four of the LEDs are in the power box too.




When completed there will be 4 Red LEDs across the back, 6 white LEDs in pairs pointed down at the road, 2 yellow LEDs facing out to each side, plus 4 Fast Color Changing LEDs over the headlight to get attention.



The wiring has been run up-front to the headlight area but has not been finished yet. I've been working on it and will have some more pictures of the completed project soon.

WooferHound:
A few points that I should make ...
All the small 5mm LEDs have the Lens ground flat and are wide angle, not the normal 9 degree LEDs
The positive contacts in the battery compartmentl were too short making battery contact difficult, but a blob of solder on there fixed it
I glued shiny foil to the back of the solar panel to help reflect heat coming from the panel



This morning I wanted to test if the panel was charging the battery.
Battery was Discharged down to 3.64 volts. Bike was placed in the light optimized to the Sun
In 4 hours it had charged up to 4.14 volts. I can't see the -Charged- light on the charger module but this should be about Full Charged ... So it is charging.
The solar panel is capable of a max charge rate of 300ma. All the lights on the bike add up to about 650ma, and used for an average of  45 minutes a day. It will almost never get great light. However I think the solar charging will be able to keep up with my expected usage.
Fortunately the batteries are easily accessible and if the charge gets too low, a fresh battery can be put in there quickly.



The planned lights on the front of the bike include the White Headlight, 4 or 5 color flashing LEDs, and 2 white lights aimed down at the road. I want to spend some time on this and have installed some quick-n-dirty temporary lighting for now.



Since a 1w LED Bead light is so small and bright, it is hard to look at directly, so it's a good idea to keep the direct it away from oncoming traffic. This Romex Connector was perfect to control the beam and keep the light away from oncoming drivers. Some Color Flashing LEDs were glued on top to make sure that I get noticed.

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