6v lights fed from white line? Headlamps, Turn-signals, brakelights?

[Mike St]

LEDS may be an answer to stretch a watt no doubt, but vehicles that travel at night need a good solid halogen headlamp for safety. Auto, mopeds, licensed vehicles need 12 volt headlamps from 35-100 watt up front. Mike

[duivendyk]

There is mystery associated with the "white" wire, it has something to do with the magneto output,is it intended as an auxliary output?What is it exactly?.I am an electrical engineer and would be able to provide useful advice and info on how make best use of it without messing up the ignition output,if only I had access to a running engine.My educated guess is that it is a tap on the ignition output coil supplying a lower ac !! voltage than the full voltage "blue" wire,but that it is still a fairly high voltage that increases a lot with rpm(goes up proportionally) and therefore ill suited to supply power to low voltage devices.By using a step-downtransformer it might be possible to extract more power from that output, or drive a battery charger efficiently.But to find out if this is feasible,someone with a voltmeter with ac capability has to make some simple resistance to ground and output voltage/ rpm measurements (not necessary to ride).I could provide instructions as some precautions need to be taken in order to get meaningfull measurements.With thse results I could readily determine if a transformer (sort of like a 120/24 V furnace unit, not some big monster) fits into the picture.Up to now everybody has just groping around in the dark really.Any takers with a volt/ohm meter?,the old fashioned analog meters are the best to use,the digital variety may need some input conditioning to make sure that you get the right readings.Is anybody game??

[Mountainman]

Originally Posted by JosephGarcia

i got a 6 volt generator light from target, 2.4 volt headlight and 0.6 volt tailight, i connect both to the white wire with a switch. ive had NO problems at all, i ran this for a year on my first motorbicycle. and i used it on many builds for other people since, its reliable and bright.

ill post details later, im building a bike right now with it, ill detail the install with pics for you guys later.

JosephGarcia -- would like to have more information in regards to generator light when possible --- just starting to think about some lighting ---- Happy Riding from Mountainman

[loquin]

As he mentions in a reply the White Wire Success Story thread, creamed_Emu has come up with the answer to the white wire lighting - The CDI uses one-half of the AC cycle that the mag provides. (The mag output is an AC voltage - NOT a DC one.) This means that the other (unused) half of the AC cycle can be more heavily loaded by a light, without significantly affecting the engine operation. This is done by adding a single blocking diode to the white wire, so that only the currently unused half of the AC cycle is used for lighting.

[Molotov256]

Wow... I've just killed a significant portion of my evening reading this post from beginning to end. The message board posturing and drama at the beginning was a little overbearing, but it's a great topic, and I'm entirely intrigued. As a matter of fact, my second scariest motorbike incident involved a deflated rear tire during a high speed night ride on a busy street as a direct result of my running over some metal debris I didn't see in time. I've since stopped riding at night, but it'd be great to be unrestricted by the cycles of the sun.

duivendyk - you've got 1500 posts on this forum, and you don't have access to a running motor?? You've obviously got some serious knowledge in this field, so if you don't have a working bike or know somebody in your area that does, you could probably talk everybody on this forum into sending you $1 to build one so we could reap the rewards of your research. I'll send mine first.

Jman - Your solution with the bullet style light and the LED mag light replacement bulb sounds like a decent idea. Pics? Details? I can solder and crimp with the best of 'em, but I'm no electrical whiz, so I need some more info on the voltage converter and regulator. Not to mention the question about where one can find a bullet style headlamp for $25.

Heathen - your setup sounds awesome (and looks great). Unfortunately, I don't have access to many headlight assemblies circa 1947.

Rebelspirit - I commend your unorthodox style of posting, and thank you for creating such a good thread. Now F-off! lol... No, in all seriousness, have you head any more from wolfchild? That's kick@ss that you found a way to contact a manufacturer using these things.

There must be a solution to this. I haven't tried to hook anything up to the white wire yet because of all the posts I've seen about failures and mishaps, but if we can't run a light off it, then why the $!@% do they keep manufacturing motors with it? With all due respect to the craftsmanship exhibited by the Chinese manufacturers of these motors, the Chinese have built a reputation for cutting every possible corner to reduce costs while maintaining a questionably marketable product, and a useless 6" length of wire off the magneto coil would surely have fallen under the ax of a profit manager by now. We have to figure out a way to use it and use it effectively.

Stepping off the soapbox now... thank you.

[Civalunrest]

would it be possible to use a electric razor motor running off a jack shaft to turn it into a generator to charge battery?

[mastafoo]

All I can say is...wow

Anyways, my setup is a 2.4w headlight and .6 watt tail off the white wire. Both my bulbs blew so I'm going to put a switch and maybe more load to prevent blowouts. I was thinking of a simple 12v dc motor connected to the chain like a tensioner, but with its own sprocket. Then hook it up to a battery with a diode and there should be no problem charging/powering lights.

OR... just like there is an option to add a pull start to your HT engine, there has to be someone who can make a external generator option that puts out a few solid amps at 12v.

[Mike St]

The problem appears to have been solved at a reasonble cost, as I see Grubee is offering a 142f-1 engine equipped with a 7 amp generator for lights. This is the real solution that can power a bright halogen headlamp. The white wire idea is dead with this new develpment.

[Molotov256]

That's cool - do we know of anybody selling these generators? Anybody had any experience with them yet?

[sphynx.0029]

i am no expert by no means but here goes. i have read that teh Dynamo lights with teh generators that roll on teh tires will not work cause they dont have a regulator in them and they have a tendency to MELT WIRING AND LIGHT FIXTURES (OUCH!!) so this is what i was thinking. Remove teh white wire from teh coil, its useless (mine is gone). then add a Dynamo generator to teh tire, splice in a resister in teh line to cap the voltage to what you need to charge your batterys of even run teh lighting system the way teh white wire was originally supose to. and i sint fixin teh fingers...teh is the...lol