Thanks! Looking at what I wrote, I thought WOW that's a lot of work. But it's really not, once you know how everything needs to go together.

A few years ago I worked out how to build a kind of flashlight gizmo that straps to my wrist. The idea is you can turn it on with a flick of the wrist. It uses a 1 watt LED, which throws quite a beam. The whole thing is normally not very noticeable under your sleeve. Here's how it works: http://rico...

I've worn my BMan gear for Halloween. Nobody knows what the hell I'm supposed to be so I just say, "I'm from the future, and I'm here to help." Or just smile. The other thing is that you don't have to feel that whatever you're wearing is directly expressing your inner bunny or zombie or whatever. Yo...

I can relate to feeling the need to fit in. First year I researched everything and tried a couple daytime outfits I wasn't really happy with. The el-wire jacket and fedora was from that year, though, that's totally me. That year gave me serious kilt envy so the next year my wife made me one. It's ve...

Yes, I do that, but you have to be careful to connect them correctly. The LEDs would burn out if you tried to connect the batteries backwards. They shouldn't. LEDs are Diodes (the D in LED). Diodes conduct current one way, but block it the other way. So if you connect an LED the wrong way around, i...

Radio Shack has battery holder that hold 8 AA's. They have a 9volt style connector on the pack's top so you can easily disconnect your creation from the pack. You could use it in place of a switch even by just snapping it on when needed. Yes, I do that, but you have to be careful to connect them co...

Yes, including cheap connectors.

Something about modding mod kits strikes me as funny, btw.

I poked around on radioshack.com but couldn't find a link to the battery packs. But you cut off the PC power supply connectors and replace them with those connectors for 9V batteries, which fit on the 12V battery packs of AA batteries. I'll try to come up with the link so you can see what I'm talkin...

Consider PC mod LEDs for body art. They run off 12V, which means an 8-pack of AA batteries will last with several of them for at least a few nights. http://www.xoxide.com/lazerled.html Not sure the UV ones will really light up a lot, but they're worth checking out. I especially like that these are f...

Very cool! It had crossed my mind that a droid app to do something like this (plus GPS bookmarks for when you want to find your way back to something) would be useful, and could run in airplane mode. But not this year.

I'm glad to see somebody is at least two years ahead of me. :)

By the way, here's the old-style luxeon LEDs. The dome is about 12' across.
The mirror ball is 12".

capjbadger wrote:

ricochet wrote:I'd just ordered the tightest beam I could find.

That's what she said... ;)

-Badger

I will not riff on that. I will not riff on that. I will not riff on that.

Oops, I think I just tee'ed up another one for you.

I'd just ordered the tightest beam I could find. The data sheet is here:

http://www.luxeonstar.com/Carclo-8-7-De ... /10193.htm

Yeah, interesting. 10 degrees? Pretty tight beam.

Just an update... the rebel stars can take 1A continuous current, and oh wow is that bright. (Hot, too.) But theledlight.com doesn't sell them with the optics already mounted. Too bad, I'm not sure if I'm doing a bad job fitting the optics on or if that's the way they are. Throws a square beam, that...

OK, I admit it: I wore a bandanna and held my breath while working on that.

I took a Dremel to a couple of old pairs of glasses and trimmed the lenses down to fit into goggles. One night, one day pair. Worked great. Take care cutting and grinding the glass, though. Be sure to use eye and lung protection, you do not want to be breathing glass dust. (OK, I admit it, I just wo...

The tactical goggles have two lenses, clear and a light/medium dark. A little light. The stealth goggles are darker than most fashion sunglasses, but not uber-dark, not welder dark. Dark enough for me. I'm still going to wear my prescription sunglasses most of the time, they're really dark. AntiM, ...

Last time (2008, sigh) I got smart and took a Dremel to an old pair of glasses. Shaped them to fit inside biker goggles, wedged them in with plastic tubing, and plugged up the vents. Worked great, MUCH better than big ol' goggles over glasses. I had one pair for day, one for night. Oh, and of course...

Bit the bullet and ordered a couple luxeon rebel stars. Some real horsepower; this will be interesting. A lot pricier, though, by the time you add lenses and stuff.

The site I ordered from indicated there were a few available now, but at checkout it said they'd ship April 1. Sigh.

phil wrote:Is this the replacement here?

http://www.theledlight.com/luxeon-rebel.html

Well... not yet. That was where I'd bought the others, but so far not much choice of colors.

A couple years ago, I had great success with royal blue, 1 watt Luxeon LEDs. With a micro-puck they can run off a couple of D-cells for 24 hours. With a lens attachment they throw a 10 degree beam. Now it seems they've been discontinued. Anyone know of something comparable? I need to solder something.

For what it's worth, I use this LED series/parallel array wizard to figure out how to design the circuit. See the LED basics link for a section on Why do I need a resistor with an LED? . Makes sense to me.... Everything I've read says, yeah, you could do a series circuit, relying on the LEDs to limi...

I would rather keep it simple. Anyone have a source for a mounting arrangement for the end of a fiber optics piece? This is the article that got me thinking about this approach. He makes his own. That may work fine. http://www.allyn.com/Bike_lighting.pdf Oh my. I believe you may have just changed m...

Hmm, last week I got up some UV Lazer LEDs (from another site). The idea is to embed them in phosphorescent material so they wouldn't be directly visible.

Kinetic V wrote:I like how you attached it with Velcro! I hate putting stuff like that together and then it's a pain to wash the item later.

I'll second that. Wouldn't work for el-wire, very cool with LEDs. Looks great.

WOW I didn't even know a UV LED was produced. Let me clarify... I didn't know a LED could produce a UV ray at enough intensity to be realized. I don't know the planned candlepower output on the LEDs that you are planning to use. But I would imagine that you can use a 'superbright' white LED and use...

Great advice on taping the camera. I'll try that this year with the SLR. Until now I've used a Pentax Optio WP, a point & shoot that's waterproof to 5' for 30 minutes. Lots of fun in daytime dust storms, you only have to worry how clear the lens is. But really bad in low light unless it's completely...

Mountain bikes at Wally world are only like 60-80 bucks new. Ride it at BM, clean it up, and give itt o a kid when you leave. That worked for me....my first Burn, in 2005, my friend and I met up in Vegas. Picked up a $50 bike, made it my own, and had a fine time. Except that I'm pretty tall and you...

We're starting to train the voice recognition software that will make Zsu Zsu interact with you on the playa. So tell me, if you walked up to a heart shaped trailer with a supposed drama queen locked inside and a sign pointing at a baguette of bread (microphone) that said "Talk to Zsu Zsu", what wo...