# Mini project - old Never Ready lights



## rogerzilla (3 Jan 2020)

Modern lights look rubbish on a 1950s bike, but these will do the job when fitted with LEDs and repainted. The rear one will be very bright with a 1W red unidirectional LED.

The 3V battery isn't all it seems. It's a very stylish converter that takes C size cells (or AAs in a C sized adaptor).


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## Slick (3 Jan 2020)

They look very nice, but they must be newer than 50's surely?


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## Gunk (3 Jan 2020)

I had a front light similar to that in the 1970’s. The rears were plastic ever ready like this.


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## raleighnut (4 Jan 2020)

rogerzilla said:


> Modern lights look rubbish on a 1950s bike, but these will do the job when fitted with LEDs and repainted. The rear one will be very bright with a 1W red unidirectional LED.
> 
> The 3V battery isn't all it seems. It's a very stylish converter that takes C size cells (or AAs in a C sized adaptor).


Where have you sourced the LEDs from ?


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## rogerzilla (4 Jan 2020)

Nicelites from Reflectalite. Both lights take the screw-in bulbs, not the push-fit of later Never Readys.


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## dave r (4 Jan 2020)

Gunk said:


> I had a front light similar to that in the 1970’s. The rears were plastic ever ready like this.
> 
> View attachment 498906



Yes, I remember, they were almost as bad as the wonder lights that ran off a door bell battery.


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## rogerzilla (4 Jan 2020)

Just tested them with the existing bulbs. Both work fine. Gosh, they're dim with basic vacuum bulbs.


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## Nigelnightmare (9 Jan 2020)

I always had problems with that type of front light.
It kept coming off when you hit potholes or dropped off the kerb.
I ended up modifying the bracket on the bike to put a self tapping screw through it above the lamp bracket.
Stopped it coming off but it was a bit awkward to undo & do-up as the bracket was on the headset.

My dad modified his by drilling two holes and fitting two bolts & a piece of meccano to clamp it in place, much the same as the later plastic lamps from ever ready.


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## roley poley (9 Jan 2020)

dave r said:


> Yes, I remember, they were almost as bad as the wonder lights that ran off a door bell battery.


AHH..wonder lights sold a dynamo conversion kit so there was no battery weight for them to throw themselves off good beam pattern too


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## dave r (9 Jan 2020)

roley poley said:


> AHH..wonder lights sold a dynamo conversion kit so there was no battery weight for them to throw themselves off good beam pattern too



I wasn't aware of the dynamo at the time I just ran the lights off a battery


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## roley poley (9 Jan 2020)

dave r said:


> I wasn't aware of the dynamo at the time I just ran the lights of a battery


the quality of bike lights and fittings were VERY fisher price back then almost criminal I wish him well on the refurb


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## Ming the Merciless (9 Jan 2020)

rogerzilla said:


> Just tested them with the existing bulbs. Both work fine. Gosh, they're dim with basic vacuum bulbs.



Yeah but street lamps were bright before the oil crisis and roads were better maintained and a lot less traffic. So you didn’t have lots of hole and traffic avoiding to do. You could ride in a straight line and your eyes also adjusted to the dark as stupid bright lights didn’t close your irises.


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## roley poley (9 Jan 2020)

YukonBoy said:


> Yeah but street lamps were bright before the oil crisis and roads were better maintained and a lot less traffic. So you didn’t have lots of hole and traffic avoiding to do. You could ride in a straight line and your eyes also adjusted to the dark as stupid bright lights didn’t close your irises.


your right I wear a peaked cap at night so I can "dip" the oncoming beams and see the road


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## snorri (9 Jan 2020)

My 1950s bike had a Miller lighting set, consisting of front and tail lights and a bottle dynamo. There were fittings to hold a battery in the front lamp, although I never fitted one, presumably for use when stationary(?). On top of the front lamp was a three position switch, to give the options of Battery power, Off, or Dynamo power.
The bottle dynamo still works to this day.


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## rogerzilla (10 Jan 2020)

The LEDs arrived and the front light is pretty bright. Pencil beam so good for fork mounting (doesn't light up the front wheel). The rear light is probably a bit TOO bright and overpowers the one I use for commuting.


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## EltonFrog (10 Jan 2020)

I didn’t know you could do this, replace old bulbs with modern LEDs, I just looked on the Reflectalight site and I can get them for my Sturmey Archer Dynohub lights on my Kingpin and they’re not that expensive. Cool.


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## raleighnut (10 Jan 2020)

Nigelnightmare said:


> I always had problems with that type of front light.
> It kept coming off when you hit potholes or dropped off the kerb.
> I ended up modifying the bracket on the bike to put a self tapping screw through it above the lamp bracket.
> Stopped it coming off but it was a bit awkward to undo & do-up as the bracket was on the headset.
> ...


My Mum had a Triumph 'Palm Beach' in the 50s that had a front wheel SA dynamo and an 'accumulator' bolted to the frame, nice bike I used to nick it every now and then.


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## MontyVeda (10 Jan 2020)

rogerzilla said:


> Just tested them with the existing bulbs. Both work fine. *Gosh, they're dim *with basic vacuum bulbs.


dim yet somehow managed to drain the batteries in no time!

Every time i turn my bike lights on, for the last twenty odd years... I still feel thankful that we're not still using those old things


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## Colin_P (13 Feb 2020)

I did this a few years back on my old Pug. Modern LED bulbs with massive old school batteries mean they are usefully bright and last and last and last.


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## Richard A Thackeray (15 Feb 2020)

Colin_P said:


> I did this a few years back on my old Pug. Modern LED bulbs with massive old school batteries mean they are usefully bright and last and last and last.
> View attachment 504348




We were at my parents last Friday, & I was surprised that he used my old front light (of that type) when he went to get something from the cupboard under the stairs!


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## freiston (16 Feb 2020)

I also did this a few years back when I needed a front lamp for my folding bike. I had an old (though not as old as some of the lights in this thread) Cateye HL-500 from the 90s that I couldn't bear to get rid of but wanted something better. At a greater cost than replacing it for a modern LED unit, I replaced the bulb with an LED bulb and got some AA to C cell adaptors. The light is now powered by two eneloop AAs. The beam pattern is quite good and looks very bright (without dazzling). For seeing by, it is good enough for unlit country lanes but, depending on the road, not at high speeds.


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## Andy in Germany (16 Feb 2020)

freiston said:


> I also did this a few years back when I needed a front lamp for my folding bike. I had an old (though not as old as some of the lights in this thread) Cateye HL-500 from the 90s that I couldn't bear to get rid of but wanted something better. At a greater cost than replacing it for a modern LED unit, I replaced the bulb with an LED bulb and got some AA to C cell adaptors. The light is now powered by two eneloop AAs. The beam pattern is quite good and looks very bright (without dazzling). For seeing by, it is good enough for unlit country lanes but, depending on the road, not at high speeds.
> 
> View attachment 504823
> 
> View attachment 504824



I used those cateyes commuting to my first job in darkest Somerset. They were a massive improvement on my older ever ready lights and good for being seen under streetlights, but not so good for unlit lanes, and they ate batteries. I would generally ride using night vision and turn the front on when I saw lights approaching.


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## freiston (16 Feb 2020)

Andy in Germany said:


> I used those cateyes commuting to my first job in darkest Somerset. They were a massive improvement on my older ever ready lights and good for being seen under streetlights, but not so good for unlit lanes, and they ate batteries. I would generally ride using night vision and turn the front on when I saw lights approaching.


When I got that light, I was commuting with a shift that finished at 22:15 and so needed it throughout the year (midlands). My commute was all urban but I do recall replacing the batteries very frequently (I used rechargeable ones then too). With the LED, not only do I reckon it is brighter than the original halogen bulb but also has the advantage of staying brighter longer - the old incandescent bulb went from full brightness to dim almost straight away (but less so with rechargeables than disposables iirc - but when the rechargeables went dim, they deteriorated very quickly) .


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## rogerzilla (16 Feb 2020)

You don't get quite the same beam with an LED, as it's quite a big source and can't be focused as well as a filament. The Nicelite ones use the same reflective cone arrangement as on camping lanterns to throw the light in all directions. This gives quite good results with a simple parabolic reflector and clear lens, as on the early Never Readies. It's less successful with a Fresnel lens.


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## freiston (16 Feb 2020)

rogerzilla said:


> You don't get quite the same beam with an LED, as it's quite a big source and can't be focused as well as a filament. The Nicelite ones use the same reflective cone arrangement as on camping lanterns to throw the light in all directions. This gives quite good results with a simple parabolic reflector and clear lens, as on the early Never Readies. It's less successful with a Fresnel lens.


That is interesting. The Cateye HL-500 has both a parabolic reflector and a fresnel lens. I just tried the light with both bulbs shining onto the best wall in the darkest part of the house that I could manage (so it was only about 8' from the light) and there is quite a difference. I tried to do a couple of quick "beam shots" (camera set to manual including ISO) but they're not very good and don't do it justice - there was a lot of dimmer light in the peripheral of the main beam that wasn't picked up by the camera too. For what it's worth, the cycling experience is a lot better than the beam shots suggest. Although the LED gave much more of a "torch style" beam in the beam shot, on the road with the light correctly angled and hitting the road further away than the 8' of the beam shot, there is a pronounced cut-off and the beam looks less torchy and more rectangular.
P.S - camera lens was 17mm on a APS-C (Canon) sensor.

LED:





Incandescent:


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## Tom B (26 Feb 2020)

Andy in Germany said:


> I used those cateyes commuting to my first job in darkest Somerset. They were a massive improvement on my older ever ready lights and good for being seen under streetlights, but not so good for unlit lanes, and they ate batteries. I would generally ride using night vision and turn the front on when I saw lights approaching.



Likewise I used them on my paper rounds.

I had a set of the oval rear lights too. One of them had a clear lens so I replaced the red 5mm LEDs with the brightest yellow 5mm LEDs I could find and used that as a front marker light to save battery else the cost of batteries was greater than the £1 a day I earned.


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## Andy in Germany (26 Feb 2020)

Tom B said:


> Likewise I used them on my paper rounds.
> 
> I had a set of the oval rear lights too. One of them had a clear lens so I replaced the red 5mm LEDs with the brightest yellow 5mm LEDs I could find and used that as a front marker light to save battery else the cost of batteries was greater than the £1 a day I earned.



I was commuting through the lanes to Halfords: eventually I got a set of twin halogen behemoths with a battery pack almost as large as those now used on pedelecs, and which hung off the crossbar. Oncoming cars thought I was a tractor in the dark and would pull right out of the way. I remember I was once buzzed by a helicopter with a searchlight, and the high-beam was enough to light up the registration number...


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## Tom B (26 Feb 2020)

My GCSE electronics project was to build a rechargable battery pack that would power the lights and be charged by a dynamo.

Worked but still got an E largely I think due to a lack of paperwork and the fact I referred to the teacher as blockhead (accurate descriptive) whilst he was stood unbeknownst to me just on the other side of the prep room door.

Sadly it was never used as planned because I had to give my paper rounds up for college.


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## Shearwater Missile (26 Feb 2020)

Tom B said:


> My GCSE electronics project was to build a rechargable battery pack that would power the lights and be charged by a dynamo.
> 
> Worked but still got an E largely I think due to a lack of paperwork and the fact I referred to the teacher as blockhead (accurate descriptive) whilst he was stood unbeknownst to me just on the other side of the prep room door.
> 
> Sadly it was never used as planned because I had to give my paper rounds up for college.


Whoops. A case of Mirror,Signal,Manoeuvre springs to mind !


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