hey,
been gone for a while. I am now looking at converting a yamaha r6 trackbike to electric. since it's a track bike, there is no lighting as of yet, which gives me the opportunity to do anything at all. I am looking at the 500 lumen LED worklight by Speaker that Nukem suggests in previous posts as a headlight and have seen a number of LED blinkers and tailights, but I'm not sure how to run the electrics for these.
Any help would be greatly appreciated,
thanks,
M
what lighting system for motorcycle conversion
Mon, 02/26/2007 - 13:18
#1
what lighting system for motorcycle conversion
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Support V is for Voltage
Generally the LED units are 12 volts. Presumably your pack voltage is different than 12v :)
You could put multiple LED units in series for higher than 12v (e.g. 3 in series is 36v) or you could use a DC-DC converter that takes pack voltage and produces 12v.
I don't know of an LED equivalent for the headlight. And you'll have to do some searching to find DOT compliant LED units .. that is, DOT compliant is important if you want to register it for street use.
- David Heron, http://davidherron.com/
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
Tell me more about the R6..... What kind of motor and batteries are you going to run?? It sounds like a great toy.
I've been playing with the idea for awhile, but right now the plan is to play it safe and run with the cheapest options. I'm going to extend the rear swing arm and weld mounts for the Etek directly onto that, and then use the entire frame cavity for 72 volts of B&B batteries. My plan is to weld mounts onto the swing arm for 2 eteks just in case i want to run dual motors later. I also looked into the A123 developer packs, but i'm gonna wait and see what happens with the single eteks and b&b batts first. I don't want to get too ambitious, as this is my first project using electrics.
M
Maybe I'll run a stock headlight, and then LEDs for everything else. I do want to get it registered. I am a little worried as I am using a frame from a track bike so it has no VIN and has never been registered. Do you think this might be a problem?
M
Without a VIN you are going to have a hard time (in most states) registering and getting a license plate. Also, you will (at the very least) need to make it road legal with headlight and turn signals. You probably want to look into getting it registered as a "kit" or "assembled" vehicle instead of a "regular" one.
Chaster
p.s. I'm of the opinion that you should just get a nice lithium-ion powered worklight and use that (with it's own battery) for the headlight. I plan on using the dewalt 36V worklight. They are plenty bright and the battery is easily charged (and light) and will last a lot longer than your main battery pack anyway.
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www.xenopi.com
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But, but, the lighting needs to be DOT compliant, yes? In CA anyway that's the requirement.
- David Herron, http://davidherron.com/
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
Yeah, it does. I guess I will find out how closely they look at my headlight (I think they will have a hard time proving it isn't DOT-approved since I'm re-using the housing from the OEM headlight and just replacing the bulb and electrics... Obviously, that isn't going to be as easy for other folks (my conversion is a fully faired sport bike where the fairing hides almost everything..)
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www.xenopi.com
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I really don't think that extending the swing arm is a good idea. First of all its made from cast aluminuim not steel box section, so cutting and extending it will weaken it quite a lot. Second, adding a lot of unsprung weight to your bike will ruin the handling, as will extending the swing arm. It would be much better to either mount your motor(s) to a plate which goes in place of the original motor, or sell what you've got and get a different chassis.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but you can't just go and cut up and modify any bike and expect it to handle the same as a stock machine. Extending the swing arm is difficult, and may be dangerous unless you *really* know what you are doing. Imagine what would happen if the extra weight of the motors caused one of your welds to snap while you were on the move...
` ;)
Very good point, very few items are over engineered any more, it increases there production cost. That's a lesson we learned the hard way from our Automobile Industry loosing ground to Japan and other places. It's now very difficult to find a location to get a magnet to stick anymore, or even finding a good ground.
Some where along the line start thinking of your potential liability, if something fails and you get hurt or hurt some one.
Plaintiff's Attorney:
" So Mr. EV Mod, who manufactured your Vehicle?"
"I beg your pardon you did what to it?"
"Do you own your Home?"
"How much is it currently worth?"
Peace Out,
Gman
Now that we have clarified our beliefs, your invited to join us as we begin building on them to define our Community Mission Statement
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Gman
I'd suggest just using a REAL road-worthy headlight assembly. The amount of power the headlight draws is nothing compared to what you're sucking for the motor.
The inspector sure will be able to see that "DOT" molded into the bulb reflector. Besides, it'll be 1/10 the cost of a LED unit. Use the money on a better controller.
MarkF
That is Definitely something ppl need to think about. Many small scale motorcycle shops have higher grade welding equipment or know someone to contract extending the swing arm out for their builds. This requires the right amperage and welding equipment that most hobbyists dont own. As well as motorcycle shops pay liability for their creations so that they can maintain their manufacturers license. But, extended swingarms can be purchased for your bike if you look in the motorcycle mags and search online for it.