lighting on a minbike

[joelherman]

hey guys,
how did they power lights on minibikes when they came from the factory? did they run it off of the magneto or what?

 

[jeep4me]

Yep, well kind of. They use what's called a lighting coil.

 

[jeep4me]

The flywheel has magnets that go all around the inside of it and a seperate coil generates electricity for the lights. Alot of snowblowers have them. Find an old snowblower with a light on it and that'll work for almost any mini.

 

[joelherman]

can you adapt them to work on 5 hp briggs and tecumsehs?

 

[jeep4me]

If you can find a flywheel and lighting coil that came off from one. Some of the 5hp Tecs had a generator that mounts to the face of the fly wheel cover (on the recoil) and a small shaft attaches to the nut that holds the flywheel on to the shaft. That's probably the easiest adaption.

 

[GTO]

Some bikes just used a battery that you trickle charged from time to time. (so there's that too) (Fargo)

 

[Tom S.]

Some bikes just used a battery that you trickle charged from time to time. (so there's that too) (Fargo)

For less than 50 bucks, you can get an LED bicycle headlight that is real bright and runs for a very long time on AA or AAA batteries. For a lot more money, you can get a HID light that will absolutely scald the darkness. There are also a huge variety of LED tail lamps available. Here's one source, but a Google search will turn up lots more.

bike lights at REI.com

 

[sharkybh]

This post made me think of the old little generators we used to put on our bike tires,back in the day.