[quote=Face]I ran the wires from the hub with a little loop up the inside of the fork leg, not sure if I want to keep it there or run it on the back of the leg later on. Another idea was to drill a hole on the inside of the crown lug and feed it in through the vent hole on the bottom of the leg but I’m not sure if that’ll come back to bite me some day. I plan on moving the light up to the bars eventually, I don’t like how much light hits the top of the tire. Another thought is to mount it to the rack but I’d really like to be able to remove the rack without touching the light and having the switch on the rear of the light closer to me will be pretty convenient.
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No drilling required IMO. On my Soma I was able to run the wire up the vent hole and fish it out of the steerer tube. It was a huge pain in the ass, but it worked just fine and looks great. I wouldn’t drill if I were you.
you’ll need at least 3 shots of whisky to get through the initial screaming and yelling.
What I did was fished a single wire through from the vent hole to the crown, using a paperclip-turned-hook to grab it. There’s no way in hell you’re going to get the double strand wire through on the first try, you have to use a single strand wire as a fishing line. But it should work.
There are two potential problems with using the frame as a wire. I think you should test those before fishing wire through the vent hole.
It might not be conductive through the headset anodizing. I read that you can scratch some anodizing off to make that happen though.
This depends on the light’s circuitry. For example, you cannot do that with the luxos U because the taillight output is on a different DC circuit. On the Cyo though, I am fairly certain that you can because the taillight pigtails are simply parallel to the main wire. However you should do continuity testing first to confirm. If you don’t know what I mean I can test for you tomorrow.
p.s. I am also pretty sure neither the cyo and secular conduct through their body to the frame, so you will also need to make a short connection between the terminal and your frame.
[quote=Face]
It’s got a decent loop from where it’s zip tied to the light mount to the first wrap of tape on the down tube, I can fully rotate the bars till they touch the frame and there’s still a little slack in the cable[/quote]
Another trick is wrapping the extra wire around a dowel or cylindrical metal object and heating it up so it holds the shape.
I used a tap handle for the shape & a heat gun that was designed to rework surface mount circuit boards but I bet a hair dryer or lighter would work fine.
Don’t do this, it’ll make what you’re complaining about worse
and add its own bullshit making the beam even harder to aim unless your bars are super low, the lights are designed around a certain height off the ground
Also I’d think it would be preferable to have the weak/fail point outside the light anyway. Would rather just need to re-connect the wires and repair the connectors than have a snag also rip the light off or tear out the internals.
Don’t do this, it’ll make what you’re complaining about worse
and add its own bullshit making the beam even harder to aim unless your bars are super low, the lights are designed around a certain height off the ground
it will fatigue there and break even easier[/quote]
You can solder to a connector but then there should also be a crimp holding on to the wire insulation as well. As long as the stress isnt on the the actual solder joint itself you’re okay. So if you solder directly you could hot glue over the joint to move the stress away from the soldered joint. Lots of stuff on my motorcycles are soldered and they vibrate way more than a bicycle just take precautions
Foon, I’ll check continuity from the fork to the frame on Monday, my DMM is at the shop. I’ll also check the ground wires.
Squirrel, I have a similar heat gun, also at the shop. Not sure if the amount of wire I have at that junction is enough to wrap around anything but I’ll definitely do this with v2 if needed. I really like the way coiled wire looks but never thought about using a heat gun to set it.
Fred, if I’m keeping the light low I’ll just keep it where it is. I would like to change the mount though so I can get rid of the spacer to allow it to clear the lower cup. Anyone know of a mount that would do this?
Good point on the solder, I’ll just use the supplied crimp connectors on Monday because guess where my crimper is. My main concern with the little plastic push on jawns was if it got snagged somewhere and loosing one of the plastic jawns.
Looking at getting an SP, but later on down the line. It’s hard to justify the 300g to myself right now. The 9 series seems like an improvement… 100g in savings. Any reason I shouldn’t hold out on a 9x version?
Luxos U update: after cleaning the goo out, it lights up at speed but standlight is poor and it flickers. One of the battery cells was totally flat, gave it an overnight trickle charge, but it got suddenly warm and went flat again when I handled it. Only place I find similarly sized cells is on alibaba so going to roll the dice on that.
[quote=Face]Foon, I’ll check continuity from the fork to the frame on Monday, my DMM is at the shop. I’ll also check the ground wires.
Squirrel, I have a similar heat gun, also at the shop. Not sure if the amount of wire I have at that junction is enough to wrap around anything but I’ll definitely do this with v2 if needed. I really like the way coiled wire looks but never thought about using a heat gun to set it.
Fred, if I’m keeping the light low I’ll just keep it where it is. I would like to change the mount though so I can get rid of the spacer to allow it to clear the lower cup. Anyone know of a mount that would do this?
Good point on the solder, I’ll just use the supplied crimp connectors on Monday because guess where my crimper is. My main concern with the little plastic push on jawns was if it got snagged somewhere and loosing one of the plastic jawns.[/quote]
On two of my bikes I get surprisingly good connection between the fork fender threading and the frame. I wasn’t expecting that, but that also means you have a good chance of success.
For the cyo, the white wires are internally connected but not the black. Neither the cyo nor the secula are electrically connected to the frame. Make a little short connection from the terminal and the frame and you’re good. Secula has no polarity.
For the secula, I prefer the little plastic nubbins. The female spades can be a little tight. I had solder wires directly to the board involuntarily because the spades were just too tight - couldn’t disconnect without breaking the flimsy male terminal. The case is glued together and there is no way to open it up without cracking it a little.
If you want to do a quicker disconnect, I like these 2mm bullets. You should have zero problems with soldered connector as long as you don’t over solder and give it proper strain relief.
Damn Foon, thanks! That’s great news about the ground wire. If I need to pull the cups to enhance the connection somehow that’s OK, I was hoping to swap in a king headset I’ve had kicking around for ever and this might be the perfect opportunity.
If I can’t open the secula without potentially breaking it I’ll stick to the connectors I’ve got. I also just came up with a solution to my not-yet-existing problem of loosing the plastic bits, I’ll place a small dab of cyanoacrylate to the insulation where it enters the plastic bit. If I need to change the wire, a sharp tug should break the glue. If the connector pops out of the light, the glue will hold it to the wire.
