Alien Eye LED Mountain Bike Light
Alien Eye Mountain Bike Light Basics Specs LED Lamp: Edison Opto 5 W MR16 single chip LED Lamps with the 38° beam could be used as a second light for better angular coverage at night. The Edison Opto Lamps come in 10°, 38° and 60° models. I find the 10° the best overall angle. Mounting: The lamp quickly disconnects from handle bar clamp. The lamp can be rotated with friction side to side on the handle bar clamp for about +/- 15º. The handle bar clamp can be assembled without tools. The lamp also works with the Cateye helmet strap for a helmet mount option. The design concept for the Alien Eye was to take standard materials and make a low cost yet powerful mountain bike lighting system. The Edison Opto lamp is a high quality LED lamp with a ribbed aluminum diecast housing, which facilitates good heat transfer. The LED is fixed to the bottom of the diecasting and a plastic lens focuses the beam. The lens is held in with a small plastic ring and with three small screws. You need a very fine phillips head screw driver to remove the screws. The thin plastic ring lens holder can be easily snagged and damaged. I recommend filling the inside edge of the plastic ring edge with silicon rubber to fix it to the aluminum housing. (see instructions) Attached to the aluminum housing is a white plastic housing that adapts to the GU5.3 standard lamp mount. Buried in the white plastic housing is the small electronic unit to drive the light. From this electronic package in the plastic housing, two stiff wires run through holes in the base of the aluminum housing to the LED chip. The Edison Opto LED lamp is rated for constant use in non totally enclosed in-door situations. In this case, the Alien Eye as a mtn bike light has the advantage being more open than most in-door lighting applications and it has the additional advantage of being cooled by the airflow while riding the bike. The Alien Eye has no chance of overheating and therefore there is no need for temperature sensors and special circuitry to limit power flow. I have a lot of experience with this lamp in the "Tubelight" design. The Edison Opto LED is very robust. The lens itself is plastic and will not break. I have dropped the light and friends have dropped their lights onto the pavement several times and they continue to operate without problems. The plastic lens ring is the weakest part of the lamp and I recommend you use silicon rubber to fix the ring to the lamp as the very last operation during assembly. If the light is dropped the plastic ring will not shatter when the silicon is used. The ring might develop a small crack but it will still say in one piece when the silicon is used. This LED itself can take a lot of shock and I have not had an LED fail and no one has reported a failed LED to me. The Alien Eye is not designed to be water proof, but I have ridden in light rain with the Alien Eye and have had no problems. The lens area of the Alien Eye can be sealed better with a very light bead of RTV Silicon rubber. I have made a few with this sealing concept. If you are going to ride in a heavy rain, I would recommend just putting a plastic bag over the light and fixing with a rubber band. It could be over time, water will corrode the silver contacts in the switch, but I have no experience with that. During the forming process, it is important to make sure you cover the transition from the aluminum housing to the white plastic with a layer of material, or better yet, seal the area with a bead of silicon rubber at the start of assembly. (see sealing the lamp) I really think in most cases, water will not be a problem The Fimo should do a good job of sealing this area of the lamp. I have developed three methods to form the Alien Eye. The very first method I developed was by mixing glass fibers into Fimo polymer clay. Mixing the glass fibers was time consuming, so I searched for other processes that might eliminate the need for glass fibers. The second method uses Milliput Black, a two-part epoxy putty. The third method I developed, uses a two-part epoxy putty for the areas requiring strength and plain Fimo polymer clay for the areas that just need to be filled in and covered up. It can occur that with pure Fimo there might be some fine cracks in the Fimo after baking. These should be no problem and could be filled in with raw Fimo for cosmetic purposes. I find the third method the easiest and least time consuming method. Regardless of the method chosen, the aluminum housing can be dirtied with finger prints from these sticky materials. I recommend masking off with tape the parts of the aluminum housing not being used in the immediate forming. Remember to remove the tape before baking the lamp! Fimo
The most difficult part of making the Alien Eye with the first method is mixing the glass fibers into the Fimo. Since I have made numerous lamps I have refined the process using a meat grinder and a pasta maker. I bought these items on Ebay for about twenty dollars, where shipping costs were the largest factor. However, for one or two lamps it does not make sense to make the investment. Mixing the Fimo by hand would take about 1/2 hour. The newer third method eliminates the need to mix glass fibers in the Fimo for strength, the five minute two-part epoxy putty is used as the material for the lamp "skeleton" and Fimo polymer clay is then used as the outer skin. The two-part epoxies are not suitable for the outer skin since they cure too fast to make a nice smooth surfaces and they typically have unattractive colors. After curing the Fimo in an oven at 100-110C for at least 1/2 hour, the Fimo can be sanded and buffed to a shiny finish. The surface can be wet sanded in steps using 300, 600, 800, 1000 and/or 1200 grit wet sand paper. You can sand a lamp with a 12 x 25 mm piece of each grade of wet sand paper. If you need a set of small pieces of the wet sand paper, write me. If you are careful in forming and leave no finger prints before baking, you do not really need to sand it to have a nice looking lamp.
The Milliput is very sticky to mix and your fingers will get very dirty. After mixing it is best to let the mass set five minutes and then it is easier to work with and not so sticky. Wash your hands before handling the diecast lamp housing or else it will take on a dirty look from the Milliput from your fingers. You might mask the lamp with tape before applying the mIlliput to keep from smudging the aluminum. Milliput can be smoothed during curing with water. After curing Milliput can be sanded and finished just like Fimo. If you have to interrupt the forming of the outer surface when using Milliput, you will have an overlap seam (see picture left) which can not be made real smooth before curing or easily sanded away. You can buy Milliput on Ebay. I found this guy, http://myworld.ebay.de/ancestraldawn/ to have the best prices.
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Fimo
is a polymer molding clay used typically in crafts that hardens at 110ºC
(230ºF) in a convection oven. It comes in Fimo soft and Fimo Classic and as
many 
The other option is 
