SON has 4.8 mm male spade connectors so if you already have the wire and connectors to for the B&M then the female 4.8 mm spade connectors should be all you need. Crimp em on and add some heat shrink tubing.
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So you have no dynamo hub currently? Because if you have a Shimano now, I literally just use the Shimano plastic block on my SON hub.
What would people think about making a stable, periodically updated guide to bike dynamos? I was thinking either a google doc, a wiki, or a pdf?
I feel as if there’s a ton of ambient knowledge here, but also it’s hard to search for what I want to know, and maybe organizing things this way will jog people’s memories on cool stuff they never mentioned.
I drafted this outline, it’s not exclusive or exhaustive, but maybe it can be a start? (pardon the formatting)
Materials
products
accessories
Installation
prep
routing
fork leg
top tube
seat stay
holistic cable path
cable attachments
solder
spade
twist
other connectors
lamp setting
clamps
arms
height
clearing other accessories
rear light fixture
seatpost
stay
saddle
Maintanence
water ingress
hub wear
replacement parts
Extras / Expanded practice
capacitor improvement
inline battery / reserve / trickle charger
usb charger
Concepts
visibility
beam pattern
raw power
standlight strength
steady vs pulsing light
reliability
hours
years
weather
repairability
which parts can come apart
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I don’t have anything constructive to add but a bit of cheer leading. Keep going.
Would the Tarck database sheet be a good place to put it?
I’d be in for this effort.
This is a great idea. I’d add rough estimate of cost to the spreadsheet.
It seems like someone could make dozens of dollars selling a small range of dyno packages. A while ago it looked like Riv might go in that direction. Then they made a blog post about building someone’s custom with dyno lights and made a big deal about how difficult the wiring was and that they wouldn’t do it again.
Anyway, it would be great to see fancy, midrange, and budget dyno options laid out in a clear way.
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I’ll start. Shimano hub, cyo, secula, di2 cable routing stickers, done.
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Intelligent Design Cycles did something kinda like this with pre-built dynamo wheels. Their website is still up but they also seem to have given up on restocking wheels. Which is a bummer because the $100 Sanyo wheel I bought from them has been flawless for like 7 or 8 years now…
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This, with the Toplight as an alternate rear light if you have a rear rack.
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Just curious, how many of you folx would like a custom built dyno wheel but don’t want to do it yourself?
What other barriers are folx running into other than the installation on the bicycle?
Mostly price. A reasonable set of battery lights is less than a hundred bucks.
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Yeah, it’s the budget end of dyno hubs that confuses me. I know where to get the fanciest dyno hub, but I’m never quite sure what the difference is between the SV, Sanyo, and all the various Shimano models.
And the bike that would probably benefit most from a dyno is the daily beater that doesn’t need a custom SON wheel.
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I don’t know about SV and Sanyo, but with Shimano the different hubs are just various combinations of weights, watts, axle types, and disc brake mounting.
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I’ll admit that I don’t have dyno lights on my Big Dummy because I can’t buy the exact wheel I want off the shelf and have never built a wheel myself. I have had one wheel built at a shop here and while the final wheel turned out perfectly fine, it was a pain in the ass
I can confirm that the cheapest nutted Shimano dynamos are very functional, usable and maintainable products. They are a good choice for any commuter, and a super plush option for a beater or lockup bike. And it wouldn’t be nuts to do pbp on one. Just heavy.
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Same, I would buy a handful of those if they were still offering them. I assume it stopped making financial sense after the first run.
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Never built a wheel and don’t really want to learn, frankly. Happy to pay for prebuilt or the occasional lbs built special. Have definitely ordered prebuilt dyno wheels for all the bikes I currently have lit up.
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I’ve built wheels in the past, but all my dyno wheels have either been from Q or Braden and have been pretty happy doing it that way. The two wheels from Q were nice because one was a closeout that someone on tarck mentioned and the other was 25% off from a local shop.
Did we ever come to an agreement to whether SP good or SP bad? Would love to lose some weight from my chunky Shimano