Decorating my bicycle helmet

[urthegman]

Hello all, Every year I do the Five Boro Bike tour which takes you through the Five Boro's of New York City. There are a lot of different bicycles and people decorate their helmets in VERY creative ways!!!! I would love to decorate mine in a Christmas theme with working lights but I am drawing a blank how to do it. I DO carry a back pack, so I can put a power supply in there. Any suggestions how to decorate my helmet are greatly appreciated. Thanks, George

[LondoB5]

Most notebook computers require 12v. Smartstring hubs require 12v.
The easiest way to do this as far as I can see, if you want to do something really creative, is a notebook, a pixelnet dongle, smartstring hub, and wire the helmet (and potentially the entire bike) with smartstrings. You'll also need a 12v car battery or motorcycle battery.
The only thing you need to figure out is how to mount the car battery on your bike.
Since this is powered, you could potentially also run powered computer speakers to run your lights with music.

This is probably way over the top though....unfortunately, I start at over the top and go from there.

[shaunkad]

I do not know if they can still be found but they used to make magnetos for bicycle head and tail lights. It ran off the rear tire rim. It would be a way to recharge a battery pack while riding. How about solar power LEDs. I would not want to carry more the a few D cells on my back. How about the DC/MR16

[urthegman]

Most notebook computers require 12v. Smartstring hubs require 12v.
The easiest way to do this as far as I can see, if you want to do something really creative, is a notebook, a pixelnet dongle, smartstring hub, and wire the helmet (and potentially the entire bike) with smartstrings. You'll also need a 12v car battery or motorcycle battery.
The only thing you need to figure out is how to mount the car battery on your bike.
Since this is powered, you could potentially also run powered computer speakers to run your lights with music.

This is probably way over the top though....unfortunately, I start at over the top and go from there.

Hmmm, I will be cutting 15 of the 120 node flexible strips from 120 nodes down to 90, and I DID run my show from my laptop last year, if I could take one of the controllers from my snowfall lights (looks like a wall wart) connect that to the leftover flexible strips and somehow power it all...............

[urthegman]

I do not know if they can still be found but they used to make magnetos for bicycle head and tail lights. It ran off the rear tire rim. It would be a way to recharge a battery pack while riding. How about solar power LEDs. I would not want to carry more the a few D cells on my back. How about the DC/MR16

Do they make solar LEDs that blink?

[tbone321]

I do not know if they can still be found but they used to make magnetos for bicycle head and tail lights. It ran off the rear tire rim. It would be a way to recharge a battery pack while riding. How about solar power LEDs. I would not want to carry more the a few D cells on my back. How about the DC/MR16

Those magnetos are both unregulated and unfiltered and may actually cause damage to the equipment.  Solar cells would be of little use at night and you wouldn't see much of the lights during the day where they would be effective.  You could set up a few nicad packs for 12V which are both lighter and safer than a wet cell in this situation.  Lipo is even lighter and lasts longer but are $$$$$ and require special chargers.

[shaunkad]

I should have specified that these would be for charging batteries not for running equipment. 

[urthegman]

Could I put a set of 20 LEDs on a small tree and get them to blink somehow? The dark background of the tree might make the lights show up?

[LondoB5]

I do not know if they can still be found but they used to make magnetos for bicycle head and tail lights. It ran off the rear tire rim. It would be a way to recharge a battery pack while riding. How about solar power LEDs. I would not want to carry more the a few D cells on my back. How about the DC/MR16

Those magnetos are both unregulated and unfiltered and may actually cause damage to the equipment.  Solar cells would be of little use at night and you wouldn't see much of the lights during the day where they would be effective.  You could set up a few nicad packs for 12V which are both lighter and safer than a wet cell in this situation.  Lipo is even lighter and lasts longer but are $$$$$ and require special chargers.

A laptop battery pack or two would also probably work well.

[CaptKirk]

If you can find a 12V one- they do vary.  Looking at a few I have lying around my office- I see a bunch of 10.6v and one at 14.4v...

[LondoB5]

If you can find a 12V one- they do vary.  Looking at a few I have lying around my office- I see a bunch of 10.6v and one at 14.4v...

He'll probably have to do a few mods anyway ;-)

btw, my 12v power supply runs normally at 14v. 14.4 shouldn't be that much of a difference. However, if it is an issue, an inline resistor should fix that.
Good call, though Capt. You can't just pick any laptop battery pack...and especially not one in a laptop that has been used a few years, or the duration that it holds a charge will be much smaller.

[chrisatpsu]

how "wild" do people decorate their bikes?    i think i gotta see this...       

[urthegman]

how "wild" do people decorate their bikes?    i think i gotta see this...       

YEP! THAT'S on a bicycle!!!! LOL

[LondoB5]

Sorry to put a damper on things, but according to another post by RJ, you can't use a battery to run a smart string hub :-(
Power has to come from a regulated source.

[urthegman]

Someone on PC recommended and in doing so reminded me that I have 20 count sets of battery operated white, red and multi but they don't blink, any ideas to make them blink?