Entering the Darkness

So I've not ridden much this summer and it shows. I can feel it. So to push myself, I began to get my lights ready for some evening commutes. And to be honest, the lights needed attention way back in Spring. One of my dual-mount lights was out and I didn't know why. But my single light that I mount on my helmet... which would probably be enough... worked like brand new. But I looked over the roads I would need to circumnavigate and decided, "the more light, the better" since the traffic could potentially be hazardous to my well-being.

So the flood light on my dual was out. Bad bulb? Faulty switch? Well, only one way to find out. Allen wrenches and screwdrivers in hand... faulty switch?! Worse. One of the connectors broke. And not only a connector... a tiny connector... inside a tiny switch housing. So I proceeded to open up the tiny housing and managed to get everything out without too much of a problem. Albeit everything was a very tight fit.

So I'm staring at a tiny sliver of copper that broke at the thinnest section. Time for trial and error... which lasted several evenings in frustration. Radio Shack did not carry the part. Rigging the wiring in various configurations rendered the switch useless. Soldering was futile (although I did fix my Oakley X-Metal Mars sunglasses via soldering copper wire in place of the broken c-clips Oakley provided - pics later).

Te last straw was when I was trying to get the switch back together after one of my attempts to solder the wire directly to the broken connector. It didn't want to nap together so I started to take everything apart again. But just as I popped the cover... in that one instance... the tiny spring that actuated the switch... was gone. BOING! Off into the carpet. Three hours later, I gave up on finding the spring.

The next evening, I stopped by Radio Shack to either find a tiny spring or a possible waterproof switch to retrofit onto the light. Again, R.S. fails to deliver on both counts. Frustrated, I stew for another day.

I decide to do a direct connection. A small bit of wire magic and viola! 5 minutes to a hard-wire connection. When the battery is attached, the flood light is on. Period. The spot light, the second light, still functions as it did, with a remote switch meant to be turned on and off on the fly. The last thing I need to do is add some kind of sealant where the original switch mounted on the back of the light. But I think that's the least of what I went through to get the lights operational and useful again.

Next stop, lighting up one of the bikes, front and rear including rear red blinkies and a blinkie for my touring back pack.