Neon Leaner

Ben Wilson of Wilson Brothers Design made this neon-encased leaning quadricycle for a couple of Art Car parades in Manchester and Edinburgh. Talk about nighttime road visibility! Silly me, with just my Down Low Glow light.

A Bevy Of Brass Lions

Some recently acquired artifacts of a distinctly brassy liony nature.
What could I possibly have planned for them?

Silver Fox Video

Video of the Silver Fox trike all lit up at night with our homemade lights:

Presenting The Silver Fox Tadpole Trike

We've concluded our work on our second trike, the aluminum trike covered in previous posts. We've dubbed it the Silver Fox, and it sports our homebuilt LED lights in nice chrome Art Deco housings, white wall tyres, chrome fenders, amber Down Low Glow tube and fox hood ornament. Check it out!

































Here is the Flickr set.

Best Bar Ever.

Steamy Bar

White Lights

Okay, so I previously covered the creation of the tail lights for the trike, so now I am going to cover the headlights. The circuit is the same, but the white LEDs have different voltage and current requirements so they will need different resistors. So I'll begin with a parts list:

• White Bullet Lights


• White LEDs


• Resistors

It's the same idea as before, only the white LEDs are shaped differently because they have their own heatsink that they are mounted on. The two bullet lights are going to be smaller side lamps, while a large bullet headlight is going to be the main headlight.

I am reposting the circuit diagram here for reference:


So to begin with, I gave the white LEDs a test to check their brightness. Here's a photo of the test:


I soldered wires to the LEDs:


Then I mounted the LEDs in the white bullet lights:


I also used the larger white bullet light which is to be the main headlight:


Here it is opened up. I removed the light bulb but did not bother removing the battery case, as it was riveted in place and would have been very difficult to remove without damaging anything:


Then all that remained was to mount the lights. I mounted the headlight on the front derailler bar:


Here's a good photo of the white LED in the front lamp:


I mounted the rear bullet lights using some of the premade mounting holes on the trike frame. Also visible are the wire crimps I used to connect up the whole trike. I am going to put black heat-shrink tubing over the crimps so they're not quite so visible:


The large rear lamp was mounted to the rear fender. I drilled a 1/4" hole, and the light included all the mounting hardware:


Here is a couple of photos of all the tail lights together:




And finally, a view of the front bullet lights. The fender mounts had these cool little mount points that ended up being perfect for the lights:


Finally, all the wires (made of black 20 gauge lamp wire held in place by black zip ties) were run to a bag strapped behind the seat. The bag is just the right size to hold the electronics box:


And there you go! The lights are bright as heck! I calculated the batteries as lasting around 2.5 hours, but we haven't tested the system to that limit yet, as we generally recharge the batteries after every ride anyway.

Mercedes Steamy Hommage To The First Automobile

This concept car from Mercedes-Benz inspired by the very first Benz is undeniably Steamy in pedigree. It wouldn't make a bad pedalcar either. ;)

Via Jalopnik.