The beaver family living in their pond along the Dutchess Rail Trail near Titusville Rd is doing so well they’ve erected a second lodge:
It’s 500 feet (-ish) upstream from the first lodge and seems somewhat smaller, so perhaps it’s for the kids.
Author: Ed
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Why LED Lamps Fail
Spotted over a fast food emporium’s parking lot:
Disemboweled parking lot light It’s hard to be sure, but I think there’s a paper wasp nest around the bundle of wires just above the transformer / ballast / whatever. Perhaps the repair tech departed with the job unfinished?
As with traffic signals, flashlights, and automotive lighting, the LEDs surely work long after the driver circuitry has given up.
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Tour Easy Rear Running Light: Circuit Support Plate
Building the circuit support plate for the amber front running light was entirely too fiddly:
1 W LED Running Light – baseplate dry assembly This was definitely easier:
Running Light Circuit Plate – solid model Two pins fit in the small holes to align it with the LED heatsink, with an M3 stud and brass insert holding it in place:
Tour Easy Rear Running Light – circuit plate attachment The rectangular hole around the insert let me glop urethane adhesive over it to lock it into the plate, with more goop on the screw and pins to unify heatsink and plate.
The LED wires now emerge from the heatsink on the same side of the plate, simplifying the connections to the MP1584 regulator and current-sense resistor:
Tour Easy Rear Running Light – regulator wiring The paralleled 5.1 Ω and 3.3 Ω resistors form a 2.0 Ω resistor setting the LED current to 400 mA = 1 W at 2.6 V forward drop. They’re 1 W resistors dissipating a total of 320 mW and get barely warm.
The resistors and wires are stuck in place with clear adhesive, so things shouldn’t rattle around too much.
The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters. Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters// Circuit plate for Tour Easy running lights // Ed Nisley – KE4ZNU – 2021-09 /* [Hidden] */ ThreadThick = 0.25; ThreadWidth = 0.40; HoleWindage = 0.2; Protrusion = 0.1; // make holes end cleanly function IntegerMultiple(Size,Unit) = Unit * ceil(Size / Unit); ID = 0; OD = 1; LENGTH = 2; inch = 25.4; //———————- // Dimensions // Light case along X axis LightID = 23.0; WallThick = 2.0; Screw = [3.0,6.8,4.0]; // M3 OD=washer, length=nut + washers Insert = [3.0,4.2,8.0]; // splined brass insert, minus splines InsertOffset = 10.0; // insert from heatsink end PinOD = 1.6; // alignment pins PinOC = 14.0; PinDepth = 5.0; Plate = [50.0,LightID,Insert[OD] + 4*ThreadThick]; // overall plate size WirePort = [10.0,3.0,2*Plate.z]; NumSides = 2*3*4; //———————- // Useful routines module PolyCyl(Dia,Height,ForceSides=0) { // based on nophead's polyholes Sides = (ForceSides != 0) ? ForceSides : (ceil(Dia) + 2); FixDia = Dia / cos(180/Sides); cylinder(r=(FixDia + HoleWindage)/2, h=Height, $fn=Sides); } // Circuit plate module Plate() { difference() { intersection() { cube(Plate,center=true); rotate([0,90,0]) cylinder(d=LightID,h=2*Plate.x,$fn=NumSides,center=true); } rotate([0,90,0]) rotate(180/6) translate([0,0,-Plate.x]) PolyCyl(Screw[ID],2*Plate.x,6); rotate([0,90,0]) rotate(180/6) translate([0,0,-Plate.x/2 – Protrusion]) PolyCyl(Insert[OD],Insert[LENGTH] + InsertOffset + Protrusion,6); translate([-Plate.x/2 + InsertOffset + Insert[LENGTH]/2,0,Plate.z/2]) cube([Insert[LENGTH],Insert[OD],Plate.z],center=true); for (j=[-1,1]) translate([-Plate.x/2,j*PinOC/2,0]) rotate([0,90,0]) rotate(180/6) translate([0,0,-PinDepth]) PolyCyl(PinOD,2*PinDepth,6); for (j=[-1,1]) translate([0,j*(Plate.y/2 – WirePort.y/2),0]) cube(WirePort,center=true); } } //- Build it Plate(); -
Tour Easy Rear Running Light: LED Lens Assembly
Having discovered the need for careful alignment of the LED PCB with the lens, I paid more attention to detail this time around.
The LEDs arrive soldered to PCBs atop aluminum star heat spreaders, but the one I picked out of the bag looked slightly misaligned. Unsoldering it showed a smear of solder paste had melted across the central pad:
1 W LED PCB – errant solder The LED has a die contact slug on the bottom which, I suppose, could be directly soldered to the spreader. For my simple needs, removing the errant solder, plunking the LED atop a layer of heatsink compound, and resoldering the leads should suffice:
1 W LED PCB – wire layout The LED holder has a pair of slots aligning it with the LED leads on the PCB. The base of the holder sits flush against the PCB, so the wires must attach directly to the LED pads.
I ran the wires for the amber light through holes close to the pads:
1 W LED Running Light – heatsink fit Which required chewing two passages in the base of the holder:
1 W LED Running Light – wiring It turns out the 5° and 10° lenses are strongly conical and leave plenty of room around the LED to run a wire around the inside of the holder, so I drilled a pair of holes to put both wires on the same side of the circuit plate:
Tour Easy Rear Running Light – circuit plate attachment The holder required minor surgery to let the wire double back on itself over the LED pad:
1 W LED Holder – wire passage The wires thread through two holes drilled in the plastic holder:
Tour Easy Rear Running Light – clamped LED assembly More urethane adhesive glues the PCB to the LED holder, with the clamp applying pressure to the lens to ensure the lens seats properly around the LED. It turned out that worked well and the light has a nicely rounded beam.
With the optics bonded together, metal-filled JB Weld epoxy attaches the heat spreader to the heatsink with good thermal conductivity:
Tour Easy Rear Running Light – clamped LED heatsink The LED holder is a slide fit in the heatsink, so the clamps can keep the PCB flat on the bottom of the recess while the epoxy gets a good grip on all parts.
Now it’s just a matter of wiring everything up!
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Tour Easy Rear Running Light: LED Heatsink
Because the rear running light will have a higher duty cycle than the front light, I made the (admittedly too small) heatsink slightly longer, with a deeper recess to protect the lens from cargo on the rear rack:
Tour Easy Rear Running Light – boring LED recess Boring that nice flat bottom is tedious; I must lay in a stock of aluminum tubing to simplify the process.
Drilling the holes went smoothly:
Tour Easy Rear Running Light – drilling LED heatsink Those two holes fit a pair of pins aligning the circuit plate, with a screw and brass insert holding it to the heatsink. Scuffing a strip across the aluminum might give the urethane adhesive (you can see uncured globs on the pins) a better grip:
Tour Easy Rear Running Light – circuit plate attachment The screw / insert /pins are glued into the plate to permanently bond it to the heatsink. The screw occupies only half of the insert, with the longer screw from the end cap pulling the whole affair together.
The two holes on the left pass both LED leads to one side of the circuit plate, where they connect to the current regulator and its sense resistor.
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Rear Running Light: Too-aggressive Turning
The same lathe fixture and double-sided duct tape trick I used for the amber running light’s end cap should have worked for this one, but only after I re-learned the lesson about taking sissy cuts:
Tour Easy Rear Running Light – end cap fixture – swirled adhesive Yet another snippet of tape and sissy cuts produced a better result:
Tour Easy Rear Running Light – end cap Protip: when you affix an aluminum disk bandsawed from a scrap of nonstick griddle to a lathe fixture, the adhesive will grip the disk in only one orientation.
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Rear Running Light: Tour Easy Seat Clamp
With the amber front running light blinking away, it’s time to replace the decade-old Planet Bike Superflash behind the seat:
Superflash on Tour Easy The new mount descends directly from the clamps holding the fairing strut on the handlebars and various hose clamps:
Rear Running Light Seat Clamp – solid model The central block has two quartets of brass inserts epoxied inside:
Rear Running Light Seat Clamp – sectioned – solid model That means I can install the light, then mount the whole affair on the bike, without holding everything together while fiddling with overly long screws.
A trial fit with the not-yet-cut-to-length 25.3 (-ish) PVC pipe body tube:
Rear Running Light – Tour Easy seat clamp trial fit The aluminum plates have the standard used-car finish: nice polish over deep scratches.
Although I’ve been thinking of mounting the light below the seat rail, as shown, it can also sit above the rail.
Mary hauls seedlings and suchlike to the garden in a plastic drawer bungied to the rack, with the SuperFlash serving as an anchor point; this light may need fine tuning for that purpose.
The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters. Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters// Rear running light clamp for Tour Easy seat strut // Ed Nisley – KE4ZNU – 2021-09 Layout = "Show"; // [Show,Build,Block] Section = true; /* [Hidden] */ ThreadThick = 0.25; ThreadWidth = 0.40; HoleWindage = 0.2; Protrusion = 0.1; // make holes end cleanly function IntegerMultiple(Size,Unit) = Unit * ceil(Size / Unit); ID = 0; OD = 1; LENGTH = 2; inch = 25.4; //———————- // Dimensions // Light case along X axis, seat strut along Y, Z=0 at strut centerline LightOD = 25.4 + HoleWindage; StrutOD = 5/8 * inch + HoleWindage; PlateThick = 1/16 * inch; WallThick = 2.0; Kerf = ThreadThick; Screw = [3.0,6.8,4.0]; // M3 OD=washer, length=nut + washers Insert = [3.0,5.4,8.0 + 1.0]; // splined brass insert RoundRadius = IntegerMultiple(Screw[OD]/2,0.5); // corner rounding ScrewOC = [IntegerMultiple(StrutOD + 2*WallThick + Screw[ID],1.0), IntegerMultiple(LightOD + 2*WallThick + Screw[ID],1.0)]; echo(str("Screw OC: ",ScrewOC)); BlockSize = [ScrewOC.x + Insert[OD] + 2*WallThick, ScrewOC.y + Insert[OD] + 2*WallThick, LightOD + StrutOD + 3*WallThick]; echo(str("Block: ",BlockSize)); BaseOffset = -(WallThick + LightOD/2); // block bottom to centerline StrutOffset = LightOD/2 + WallThick + StrutOD/2; // light centerline to strut centerline echo(str("Strut screw min: ",IntegerMultiple(PlateThick + WallThick + StrutOD/2 + Insert[LENGTH]/2,1.0))); echo(str("Light screw min: ",IntegerMultiple(PlateThick + WallThick + LightOD/2 + Insert[LENGTH]/2,1.0))); NumSides = 2*3*4; //———————- // Useful routines module PolyCyl(Dia,Height,ForceSides=0) { // based on nophead's polyholes Sides = (ForceSides != 0) ? ForceSides : (ceil(Dia) + 2); FixDia = Dia / cos(180/Sides); cylinder(r=(FixDia + HoleWindage)/2, h=Height, $fn=Sides); } // Block with light along X axis module Block() { difference() { hull() for (i=[-1,1], j=[-1,1]) translate([i*(BlockSize.x/2 – RoundRadius),j*(BlockSize.y/2 – RoundRadius),BaseOffset]) cylinder(r=RoundRadius,h=BlockSize.z,$fn=NumSides); for (i=[-1,1], j=[-1,1]) translate([i*ScrewOC.x/2,j*ScrewOC.y/2,BaseOffset – Protrusion]) rotate(180/8) PolyCyl(Screw[ID],BlockSize.z + 2*Protrusion,8); for (i=[-1,1], j=[-1,1]) translate([i*ScrewOC.x/2,j*ScrewOC.y/2,0]) { translate([0,0,-Protrusion]) rotate(180/8) PolyCyl(Insert[OD],Insert[LENGTH] + 1*Protrusion,8); translate([0,0,(StrutOffset – Insert[LENGTH] – Kerf/2 + Protrusion)]) rotate(180/8) PolyCyl(Insert[OD],Insert[LENGTH] + 1*Protrusion,8); } translate([-BlockSize.x,0,0]) rotate([0,90,0]) cylinder(d=LightOD,h=2*BlockSize.x,$fn=NumSides); translate([0,BlockSize.y,StrutOffset]) rotate([90,0,0]) cylinder(d=StrutOD,h=2*BlockSize.y,$fn=NumSides); translate([0,0,StrutOffset]) cube([2*BlockSize.x,2*BlockSize.y,Kerf],center=true); cube([2*BlockSize.x,2*BlockSize.y,Kerf],center=true); } } //- Build it if (Layout == "Block") if (Section) difference() { Block(); rotate(atan(ScrewOC.y/ScrewOC.x)) translate([0,BlockSize.y,0]) cube(2*BlockSize,center=true); } else Block(); if (Layout == "Show") { Block(); color("Green",0.25) translate([-BlockSize.x,0,0]) rotate([0,90,0]) cylinder(d=LightOD,h=2*BlockSize.x,$fn=NumSides); color("Green",0.25) translate([0,BlockSize.y,StrutOffset]) rotate([90,0,0]) cylinder(d=StrutOD,h=2*BlockSize.y,$fn=NumSides); } if (Layout == "Build") { translate([-1.2*BlockSize.x,0,-BaseOffset]) difference() { Block(); translate([0,0,BlockSize.z]) cube(2*BlockSize,center=true); } translate([1.2*BlockSize.x,0,StrutOD/2 + WallThick]) difference() { rotate([180,0,0]) translate([0,0,-StrutOffset]) Block(); translate([0,0,BlockSize.z]) cube(2*BlockSize,center=true); } translate([0,0,StrutOffset – Kerf/2]) rotate([180,0,0]) intersection() { Block(); translate([0,0,StrutOffset/2]) cube([2*BlockSize.x,2*BlockSize.y,StrutOffset],center=true); } }
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 