[Dragonfly DIY] Bike tail final form?
Jan. 25th, 2015 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnridleyI brought my bike inside today to do some more tweaks.
I put my favorite headlight back on, a "1600 lumen" spot with a wide lens mod from Action LED Lights. It's mounted on a 3D printed mount grabbed off Thingiverse (link) since the powdercoated handlebar on this bike is very slippery to O-ring mounts.
I took the ailing Planet Bike computer off (I'm not upset, it's 10+ years old, it's just had too many shakes and is cranky these days) and put on a $3 Chinese eBay computer which actually works just fine. I threw on a flashlight mount on the handlebar since I carry an 18650 flashlight in my tool pouch as a backup light, so I can just snap it on as needed.
I also made a new bracket for my new taillight, a DesignShine DS-500 (silver L bracket between the bar clamp an the taillight on the left on the first photo). The bracket it comes with is designed for mount on a vertical bar (seat post). I think on a horizontal bar with this bracket, it is far better - it is not leveraged way out from the clamp. Designshine actually sells this exact bracket and I would have ordered it but I didn't know about it then, and I figured I'd spend an hour making one rather than paying shipping and waiting a few days, since I had all the stuff sitting around to make it and it's fun to make your own stuff anyway.
I did a little tweaking to the bar mounts, so they're a bit more snug now. It's nice to have the bike inside, otherwise I would not do all this tinkering.
I also found a reflector that I like better than the one I was using, and swapped the positions of the camera and the light so that the light has more side visibility to the left. Though now I'm thinking that side visibility to the right might be more important since that's the direction side traffic will come from. I'm not sure which I'd prefer.
In any case, other than perhaps swapping camera and taillight, this is probably about as close to perfect as I can make it.
I put my favorite headlight back on, a "1600 lumen" spot with a wide lens mod from Action LED Lights. It's mounted on a 3D printed mount grabbed off Thingiverse (link) since the powdercoated handlebar on this bike is very slippery to O-ring mounts.
I took the ailing Planet Bike computer off (I'm not upset, it's 10+ years old, it's just had too many shakes and is cranky these days) and put on a $3 Chinese eBay computer which actually works just fine. I threw on a flashlight mount on the handlebar since I carry an 18650 flashlight in my tool pouch as a backup light, so I can just snap it on as needed.
I also made a new bracket for my new taillight, a DesignShine DS-500 (silver L bracket between the bar clamp an the taillight on the left on the first photo). The bracket it comes with is designed for mount on a vertical bar (seat post). I think on a horizontal bar with this bracket, it is far better - it is not leveraged way out from the clamp. Designshine actually sells this exact bracket and I would have ordered it but I didn't know about it then, and I figured I'd spend an hour making one rather than paying shipping and waiting a few days, since I had all the stuff sitting around to make it and it's fun to make your own stuff anyway.
I did a little tweaking to the bar mounts, so they're a bit more snug now. It's nice to have the bike inside, otherwise I would not do all this tinkering.
I also found a reflector that I like better than the one I was using, and swapped the positions of the camera and the light so that the light has more side visibility to the left. Though now I'm thinking that side visibility to the right might be more important since that's the direction side traffic will come from. I'm not sure which I'd prefer.
In any case, other than perhaps swapping camera and taillight, this is probably about as close to perfect as I can make it.
