blinging/ricing it up

[carbacca]

i told GIJoe i was gonna bling and rice my rice bucket up and finally got round to doing something about it. mainly cos i managed to score some (couple of hundred) high intensity LEDs at a conference for free. hooked up 5 in parallel at the time, nominal voltage is 3.8v so i am running it off 3 AA batteries which i will probably put in the trunk somewhere (cant be bothered making voltage regulator circuit). went and madeup some boards with leads on them at work today and it looks pretty good. next i will be looking for some clear tubing to stick the boards into so i can mount them to the frame somehow. havent though of how yet

i like the colour especially as it makes my bike look black

[breakaway]

Can't you just buy a voltage regulator (I remember from my 6th form electronics we used to use the 7805 regulator and it put out 5v) and wire your shit up directly to your battery with a switch?

[EJK]

OMG, new TV series Pimp my Bike starring Carbacca? lol

[gijoe1313]

I heartily approve! Blinging out your inner ricer is the way to go... zen the art of ricing! You have done one better and actually took piccies of your LED bling before installing unlike me! http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...ad.php?t=42366

I will have to go back and take some piccies of my set up

Oh yeah Carbacca, much better to wire into your battery with fuse and have a blingy toggle switch (I will be installing a remote for mine eventually!) Sweetness!

[carbacca]

i dont want to have to worry about voltages just yet, since it runs so nicely on the AA's. once i get it all in would be easy enough to replace the battery pack with a regulator from the bike battery i think

[gijoe1313]

Once all the asian bikers have riced out their bling bits, we can all gather at night and switch them all on

Next project : TRON bike and riding gear

[Jeaves]

Once all the asian bikers have riced out their bling bits, we can all gather at night and switch them all on

Next project : TRON bike and riding gear

steady on Gi.....dont get too crazy on us eh

[discotex]

Once all the asian bikers have riced out their bling bits, we can all gather at night and switch them all on

Next project : TRON bike and riding gear

it'll be like that TV One ad with all the flashlights. We'll be able to see you all from space.

I trust you've seen this dude? http://www.tronguy.net

[deanohit]

Hey thats gonna look pretty cool once its hooked up, piccies of them on the bike please.

[xwhatsit]

Hey dude, running the LEDs directly off a voltage source will run fine for a little while, but after a while they'll keep burning out. The technical reason for this is because they are semiconductors (i.e., not linear components), a small change in voltage causes a huge change in current, which could fuck them up in short measure.

What you want, for long-lasting LEDs and brightest output, is a current-limiting resistor -- plenty of online calculators, I've used http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz -- that way you don't have to fuss about with Ohm's law and stuff like that. If you like, you could easily then run them off your motorcycle's battery (just substitute a different voltage into the calculator to get the resistor's value).

[Squiggles]

I did something like this on my rgv for a while, wired up led's inside a piece of clear tubing by cutting it longways then sealing it afterwards, ran mine off a RC car battery pack (12v) that sat in the tail with the toolkit... worked well, didnt run anything flat and didnt burn out!