Cycling jacket that detects motion

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Originally Posted by GLC1968

I think all your ideas sound really good, but one of the things I liked best about the jacket is the height of the lights. I often ride with stuff on a rear rack, and with my short legs, that means the back of my saddle is obscured. A light on the back of the rack is too low in height to be effective in traffic. The jacket's advantage was that it was on the persons body... Of course, this won't work with a back pack, so I guess all designs have some downfalls. Perhaps on the back of a helmet? Then long hair or a helmet cover could be an issue, I guess...

I don't know...just thinking out loud here....;)

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Yup,

the thing with engineering is that everything is a trade-off. Simplicity vs. functionality, one thing, for another. The jacket idea is a good one, except that its going to be illogical for warmer weather, power consumption, is an issue, etc. Making a blinkie into a stop light is also a tradeoff - Not as visible as the jacket idea, accelerometers tend to be linear devices, etc. If you make a jacket with integrated lighting, chances are sales and use would be fairly limited, due to cost to manufacture, not practical when its warm out, etc. A blinkie stop light - simpl(er) to engineer, much lower cost, low power consumption, large sales base. The downside - again, less visible and eye catching, finding the right accelerometer - cost/functionality, sensitivity, complexity of external circuitry/logic. Every LED that you light, requires 1.2 volts, and in parallel, the current sums - I would imagine at the very least, the jacket shown, pulls a couple of amps from a battery. I think its a great idea, but again, even if you are using an exotic battery (expensive) that has a high power to weight ratio, you are looking at something that is pretty expensive. I think at this point, and as their is really no practical bike stop light on the market, KISS may be the best initial approach. Back of the helmet with a display that says STOP may be an interesting approach too, as a follow on development phase.

This is fun to noodle around on anyway :D

Cyn

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Originally Posted by GuitarRiderGrrl

the thing with engineering is that everything is a trade-off.

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Ha, you're preaching to the choir...I'm also an EE. ;)

I just think that marketability is as important as practicality if that's the eventual plan. But yeah, definitely start simple and see how it goes. Battery life and weight are also going to be big factors in appeal to the most cyclists...again, often a trade off.

Another thought to consider - has anyone done an exhaustive search on this? There may not be a patent yet, but someone could already be producing it. It would make sense to have features that other's don't have (if that's the case).

Again, just throwing ideas out there... I wish I had more time to spend on helping out!

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Originally Posted by GLC1968

Ha, you're preaching to the choir...I'm also an EE. ;)

I just think that marketability is as important as practicality if that's the eventual plan. But yeah, definitely start simple and see how it goes. Battery life and weight are also going to be big factors in appeal to the most cyclists...again, often a trade off.

Another thought to consider - has anyone done an exhaustive search on this? There may not be a patent yet, but someone could already be producing it. It would make sense to have features that other's don't have (if that's the case).

Again, just throwing ideas out there... I wish I had more time to spend on helping out!

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Everything is pretty initial at this point, but doesn't seem to be anything out there - I've been out on Digi-Key looking at accelerometers - I want to try to keep the external logic down too thats needed to to drive the accelerometer..... power is the biggie on this, I think. A magnetic reed switch on the brakes is the simplest and gets rid of logic and most parts count, but then you have all of that icky mechanical mounting stuff :eek:

I agree with you on the time issue....... between riding, work, and music, I'm spread pretty thin - but I think I can squeeze in a KISS engineering project

You are helping out, just by bouncing ideas around..... and its so nice to think about real engineering, rather than computer security engineering, which pretty much has nothing to do with electrons, nor engineering :rolleyes:

Cyn