Wiring Help please

[dmbroom301]

Unfortunately I am not allowed to drive anymore. I am mostly blind and bicycle everywhere, yes I do mean everywhere. Anyway, I was reading these forums and you guys seem pretty knowledgeable.

The problem, I need some lighting for my bicycle that will let me ride at night. I have tried the options made for cyclists and for my visual issues they just don't cut it.

What I am wanting to do that I think will work is this:

Those 55 watt Optronics platinum burners look real nice and I have read good things about them. I can figure out how to mount them on my bicycle and I somewhat understand the whole process of relays and switches. What I don't know is what battery to use and what kind of hours of usage I might expect to get out of the battery I choose. Being on a bicycle weight and size would be big issues. However, I can mount the battery on my back rack. The usage I need is under an hour each day. Essentially used to ride too and from work in the winter time since the light is nonexistent. What I was looking at in a battery is a small motorcycle battery.

Another aspect I am unsure on is making sure everything is waterproofed. I don't mind riding in the rain. I have good clothing gear for doing that. I don't want my lighting to short out on me.

Further. when I read the diagrams I always see wiring going to a ground. I really don't think I want to ground to my bicycle frame right? I can simply run a wire to the ground terminal on the battery right?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Doug

[digimark]

Originally Posted by dmbroom301

The problem, I need some lighting for my bicycle that will let me ride at night. I have tried the options made for cyclists and for my visual issues they just don't cut it.



What I don't know is what battery to use and what kind of hours of usage I might expect to get out of the battery I choose. Being on a bicycle weight and size would be big issues. However, I can mount the battery on my back rack. The usage I need is under an hour each day. Essentially used to ride too and from work in the winter time since the light is nonexistent. What I was looking at in a battery is a small motorcycle battery.

Another aspect I am unsure on is making sure everything is waterproofed. I don't mind riding in the rain. I have good clothing gear for doing that. I don't want my lighting to short out on me.

Further. when I read the diagrams I always see wiring going to a ground. I really don't think I want to ground to my bicycle frame right? I can simply run a wire to the ground terminal on the battery right?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Doug

If you are going to use light that is going to be power hungry, i would use a sealed lead acid battery which would be much clearner than using a normal wet battery. You could get the acid on your clothes and burn holes in it. You will not have this problem with a SLA.

Alternatively, you could use a Li-Po battery which will need a proper balancer charger for charging the battery. A Lithium Polymer (Li-Po) battery would last longer as they have the best size/mAh rating that is widely available.

The downside to Li-Po is cost and durability. They need to be handled carefully, not over-charged/discharged and if batteries are in series, they need to all be maintained (balanced) at similar voltage, even whilst charging. Balancing is done when the battery is charging with a special charger called a "Balance Charger". Li-Po batteries are commonly found in Laptop computers.

Grounding to the negative of the battery is fine. No need to ground to the bike frame.