Quote Originally Posted by GLC1968 View Post
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!
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

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

Cyn