If you ride your bike at night frequently, you've probably had at least one close call with a car, pedestrian, or some other moving obstacle because of reduced visibility. Not only is it dangerous to ride at night without lights, it's illegal in a lot of places. Make sure no one can miss you with these DIY handlebar lights from Becky Stern at Adafruit.
What You'll Need
- LED strip (3 to 6 feet should be enough)
- Waterproof DC power cable set
- 8 x AA battery holder
- Heatshrink tubing
- Clear handlebar tape
- Pouch for battery holder (or fabric if you know how to sew)
- Waterproof fabric (such as tablecloth vinyl)
- Velcro closure tape
- Electrical tape
- Zipties
- Tools (soldering iron, multimeter, wire strippers, etc.)
If you're not sure where to get some of these parts, Adafruit carries the LED strips and power candles, among other things.
Putting It Together
To get your handlebars all lit up, just follow along with Becky in the video below. If you need something to follow along with, just check out her tutorial on Adafruit or just print out the PDF instructions.
Overall, it's a pretty easy project if you know how to solder already. That would be the only thing stopping you, but you can also get up to speed on soldering here.
As for attaching the battery pack to you bicycle, there's many ways you could do it; If you have something you can use as a pouch, simply put the battery holder into it and use Velcro to affix it to your bike's top tube. Then just plug in the cables and go!
If you prefer (and have enough LED tape), you can try this spiral design, or come up with your own.
What modifications have you made to your own bike to make riding at night safer?
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