This was the massive thread back in 2005 that pretty much started off a lot of the original LED light tinkering.It was hosted using the original forums from before the “hack” so may have been lost for all time. However, I was going through an old hard drive I found and discovered that I had downloaded the whole lot! Well almost all of it.

Here it is hosted on my dropbox account. Smell the nostalgia.

Homebrew LED Lights

Well I’m in it. Was just glancing through wondering when I built my light and there is my prototype that supplied some of the parts. Still got the machined housing of the the mark 2 in my tool chest. It was less bright than a £5 DX torch and way dimmer than than a £15 Solarstorm X2.

Nice work. How do you host stuff from there. Almost as clever as some of the builds. Lumicycle as I remember stopped selling the halogen cans after people started using them for everything.

So many familar names… 🙁

Cripes that was 9 years ago! I think I’ve still got my homebrew lumicycle upgrades from the old 12W/20W halogens which I stuck some cree kit in. It was such a huge jump in performance, I’ve hardly ridden into any trees in the dark since 😀

Anybody want a box of star LED’s, buckpucks, thermal paste, bits of copper and aluminium for the price of postage 😉 Been lying in my shed for years now.

Probably well over £100 of stuff in there unused or barely used.

Aahh the satisfaction of having the best lights when out in a group, even after your mate has just spent £400 on some HID thing from Hope 🙂

That thread was a revelation at the time, so much great info.

very good ..thanks, hoodoo !

still use my homebrew light made from Hair Gel can, lynx deodorant lid and an inner tube. Been very reliable for the last 4 yrs. 2 modes on and off 🙂

Do you know what the LED’s are BM? Got a couple of old cases that could do with some innards to get them going.

Oh baby food tin lights, still got mine some where, although it did pack up after 1 season.

Nearly 10 years ago though 🙁

BM interested in LEDs, as mine have just gone off, email being sent.
Ta
Chris

Hey Bedmaker,

third dibs i guess. 🙂

Poor student trying to build a dynamo light for 24hr racing. If they’re both after LEDs I would gladly take whatever’s left.

Colin

Email sent

mikey-simmo, I didn’t do anything clever with Dropbox. Just created a folder within my public folder, copied the downloaded web page and associated images into it and created a public link to the homebrew.htm page.
I don’t think that Dropbox can do things like running scripts etc. It’s just very simple web pages.
Only fly in the ointment is that when I originally saved the page all those years ago is that it hadn’t saved all the other pages so the link at the bottom of the page doesn’t work.

Homebrew will never die – this is 22 of the latest XPL from Cree.

27000 Lumens in theory. In practise they run at way less but more efficient lumens per watt.

Dave, how did you go about making that beast?

Ooh! That brings back a few memories, of too much time on Singletrack, and too much time eulogising about LED lights to my ride buddies, and thus becoming being the butt of much ribbing.

I am still tinkering and these days have moved onto LED dynamo lights, with large standlights so things stay bright all night, when I slow down or even stop, no more high/low flicking and mid-ride burn time maths and even with USB chargers so I can keep my GPS charged up on long, long, long rides (or just when I didn’t bother charging it!).

Thanks hoodoo

post reported.

Hah! I remember all that. I had a go at making my own as well, back in the days when I used to work at an engineering firm with an electronics lab! Worked pretty well, but never managed to put a decent casing together and eventually killed the buckpuck with my inept soldering.

jeffm – the case is an aluminium Alubos from Bopla. Cut to length and with the supplied end panels and rubber seals.

LEDs are from Cutter, 10mm diameter and thermally glued to a chunky piece of aluminium screwed to the case. Lenses are Carclo, 12 spot beam and 10 elliptical for that wide angle feel. Batteries are Samsung Galaxy spares – wired as 7.4V at 11Ahr.