Bike Light Battery

Today I added a long page about making a Li-ion battery pack for bicycle lights.
See it here

My Stem Measuring Jig

I have quite a few bicycles for various purposes. Some were built up on new frames, others were resurrected from sad garbage tip relics which had frames attractive to me for one reason or another. All required me to choose a stem that would suit my preferred riding position. This usually means getting the handlebar a little higher and a little closer and maybe choosing a handlebar with a bit of rise built into it.
I have a collection of stems I can try of various lengths and angles. Some are even adjustable, and though they are unattractive mechanical monstrosities they can be useful for settling on a reach and an angle of rise which can possibly be duplicated in a new fixed stem.

Box of assorted stems

The problem is finding a stem in my junk box which might suit me and the frame. Just holding one up and eyeballing it beside an already fitted stem can be very misleading.
Finally I got around to making something I've been meaning to make for a long time. A measuring appliance I could use to catalogue every stem I have by reach and rise.

Base, backboard, steerer tube (left), pointer (right)

Here it is. A base and a backboard made from two pieces of wood glued together. A short piece of scrap 28.6mm steerer tube accurately glued vertically into the base. A piece of inch diameter steel with a pointer for fitting into the handlebar clamp. If steel is unavailable, a piece of broomstick the right diameter would do just as well. And finally, a piece of graph paper glued to the backboard and hand lettered. It has 1mm squares with 1cm squares in bold and it was printed out from a "print your own graph paper" website. I used glossy photo paper just to make it look pretty and easy to glue.

Measuring a stem

Measuring quite an extreme riser stem. I read the rise and the reach from where the pointer lands on the calibrated graph paper and add it to the shop notebook with a description of the stem.
I can remove and measure the stem that comes with any bike and look at the book to see what alternatives I have on hand.

Is this overkill? Not for me when it took less than an hour to make altogether.
Is it useful? Yes. No more guessing.
Will you like the look of my bike with a riser stem and funny handlebar? Maybe not, but you don't have to ride it.

Flexy hose for frame pump

Recent frame pump discussions on a bicycle newsgroup made me reflect once again on how much I dislike my several frame pumps where you push the built in chuck onto the valve stem, flip the lever and pump. Your left hand has to support the pump head to prevent breakage of a fragile Presta valve stem or pulling the chuck off the valve completely. That's why I like floor pumps with hoses, especially the Lezyne with screw-on chuck.
How much simpler life was in my dear, departed youth when juvenile bikes came with Woods valves and pump pegs on the frame to hold a chromed tin bike pump with a hose that stored inside the handle.
Well, those cheap pumps still exist, albeit in plastic with hoses to fit Schrader valves. I decided to get one of those hoses and figure out how to adapt it to a Topeak or HP frame pump.

 Here's what I found for $2 in the BSO department at the local X-mart, complete with ball inflation needles.

 Adapting it to the modern frame pump was easier than I thought. Here's the Schrader end with a supplied screw-in Presta (or Woods) adapter.

 

 Here's the Presta adapter moved onto the end of the hose that normally screws into the cheap  tin (or plastic) pump. The threads matched. A drop of blue Loctite ensures that it stays there and seals the threads. Two minutes work.

The result is a hose with one male and one female Schrader end seen here attached to a Topeak Master Blaster. A brass Presta-to-Schrader adapter (seen in jars on the counter of the LBS) makes it fit Presta equipped wheels too. If the Chinese manufacturers hadn't thoughtfully included the little adapter I'd have arranged a male Schrader end on the hose with a salvaged Schrader valve stem and a little epoxy glue.
A bit of test pumping reveals no noticeable added resistance from the small bore hose.
The hose will be carried in an under-saddle tool bag.

Stuff I Like

Cateye TL-LD1100
One of the better red blinky lights on the market. It has two rows of  LEDs. Each row has three in the middle and one at each end for a total of ten LEDs. There are two push buttons in one end, one button per row and each row can be independently set for flash, solid, "knightrider" sequential flash and random flash. It is one of a very few rear lights that run on two AA cells which have more mAH per dollar than AAA cells and are therefore cheaper in the long run. It's not perfect. You must click through each mode to get to the one you want or to get back to "off" again and it does not remember the last mode you were using at the next switch on. And the battery compartment cap on the opposite end to the buttons is held on by a short twist bayonet arrangement  which can allow the cap to jump off and be lost, rendering the lamp useless.

A genuine Cateye TL-LD1100

 Alas, Cateye no longer list the LD1100 though at the time of writing Chain Reaction Cycles and a few others still have stock at around AUD49.00 a go.
However, since my one and only LD1100 was lost some months ago, I have been using a lookalike I espied at the local store of Jaycar Electronics, an Australian firm whose international web portal can be found at www.jaycar.com
The Jaycar product code is ST3083.
The price is AUD 9.95, UKP 3.50, USD 6.25

An identical unbranded replica.

It does not have the belt clip that came with the Cateye, only the seatpost mount with a couple of rubbers to accommodate different diameters. Apart from that, I can't tell the difference between this lamp and the Cateye branded one. Is it possible that the Chinese firm who manufactured the LD1100 continued to make the lamp after Cateye head office in Osaka dropped it from the range? I always did feel that Cateye products had a price premium added for JHAM (japanese heritage and mystique).
I have no complaints about the quality. It's made of thick, and heavy plastic moldings, the o-ring battery cap seal keeps the rain out and my first one still works after five months.

Trickery with wire and Krazy Glue

 I have several of these lamps now and I recently decided to do something about the battery cap issue other than wrapping it with zip ties or a strip of duct tape. First of all, I used long-nose pliers, bench-vise and small hammer to bend up some little hooks out of 2mm galvanized wire. With the battery cap off, I could see exactly where a 2mm drill bit would go when I made some holes in top and bottom of the lamp housing. The idea is to stay away from the edge of the PCB. After scuffing up the plastic to make a key for a later blob of JB Weld, the hooks were easily pushed into the holes with a drop of cyanoacrylate glue.

 The completed job

The hooks were very firm on their own but as planned, I added a tiny blob of JB Weld to buttress  each one. When it was set, the grey epoxy and scuffed plastic were painted with a little matt black model enamel to make it look less like a kludge. A rubber o-ring crossed over the end cap between the hooks completed the job.