Dynamo Light Set - Ebay - Any good

[veniceverges]

I'm shopping around for a set of lights for MB.
I know everyone is raving about Norm's lights.
I did however find these kits on a couple of sites.............
Southern Cali Bikes

GAS BIKE BICYCLE ENGINE KIT GENERATOR CHROME LIGHT SET - eBay (item 330347857547 end time Aug-26-09 09:53:21 PDT)

I guess this set appeals to me because they have a more vintage look, the tail light can easily be concealed under the seat, and it has a high and low beam setting.

Has anyone bought and used this kit? Really curious to know if it's any good or just crap.

Second question. I'm no electrical expert. If you have wires for the head and tail light, do they both just run into the white wire? ? ? ? ?

 

[Earthman]

I have a similar light set (maybe a little better quality). I don't use it 'cause the generator doesn't work with the tires I'm using and the headlight doesn't produce enough light. Mine is a 12v set. They put a 12v bulb in the "low beam" socket, which burns dimly, and a 6v bulb in the "high beam" socket, which burned brightly for about 10 min. then burned out. The low beam bulb isn't anywhere near the focus of the reflector so it produces a very broad, dim flood light pattern which is useless for anything except for attracting bugs. The high beam bulb is near the focus of the reflector and produces a decent beam, but it's too dim at night to drive more than 5 or 10 mph. The generator, like the white wire on the MB engine, only produces about 3 Watts of power - not enough power to product the amount of light needed for night driving. For incandescent bulbs, you need a minimum of 15 Watts up to 55 Watts or more to see enough to drive at 20 to 25 MPH at night. You need to run the lights off of a battery. LED lights are more efficient, but don't produce a suitable beam or amount of light (in my opinion). The vintage look is nice, but the head light is junk with respect to the amount of light available for MB driving. The set would be fine for a bicycle at reduced speed. Both lights would connect to the white wire, but you would be splitting 3 Watts of available power at 6 volts between the two lights.

I'm building my own tail light and have already built a headlight that I can put 15 to 55 Watt sealed beam bulbs in.

 

[geeksquid]

I've emailed these people about the generator set asking if the speed of the bike would generate too much power and blow the bulbs like I've seen done on even a non-powered bike. They told me that they've used it at high speed and it worked great and they think it has a limiter that keeps more than 12v from going to the lights. It should work great but the question is how bright the lights are. Probably not all that bright. But once the generator set is hooked up, you could experiment with other lights like LEDs. The white wire wouldn't power this light since it's output is 6v. There are threads here discussing this stuff in detail. But regarding LEDs, there is question as to their effectiveness. The LED flashlights I've used are very bright at close distances but don't put out a long beam of bright light like regular bulb flashlights. I think this is the drawback of LEDs. I know you're after a certain look, but for those who want to be able to use a bright flashlight,
Wald makes a handlebar flashlight holder very cheap.

 

[Kevlarr]

That's a good set if you plan on, ditching the dynamo, modding the head light to accept a 3w LED, modding the tail light to accept a LED, wiring everything up to the white wire and using a small 6V 1.3A SLA battery.


That's what I did with my genset lights.

 

[Humsuckler]

bad news to hear. i just bought one.

oh well.

so its 12V is it? at least ill be seen. i can mod it for some led's later on i guess....

pretty much just got it for the look really lol