Maglite Bike Mount
LED Maglites are rather impressive in terms of brightness and battery life. Having several of these small lights sitting idle around the house I thought a project centered around adapting them to cycling might be a fun thing to do. With access to CAD software and CNC machine tools, I set out to create a design that was simple in terms of fabrication and mounting to the bicycle. The mount had to be small, light and capable of attachment to the eyelets and lowrider mounts of the fork. I also thought it would be cool to mount the clamp to my Nitto M12 rack as well.
The design was worked out with VectorWorks 8, CAD software that I have been using for the last 15 years. The CAD design allowed me to create the geometry necessary to manually program the MiniMite CNC 3 axis mill that would be used to machine the part. Two operations were required for each part, one to mill the side profile with another to mill the bore and counterbore to fit M5 or M6 socket head screws.
Each clamp requires 30 minutes of machining time with an additional 30 minutes to de-burr and polish. With the tiny milling machine using a .125" end mill with a feed rate of 10 inches per minute mass production is out of the question. "Prototypes" only at this stage. Perhaps in time and with a willing market I can find a local CNC shop to turn out a few hundred.......let me know what you think. jvgreenheron@gmail.com
LED Maglites are rather impressive in terms of brightness and battery life. Having several of these small lights sitting idle around the house I thought a project centered around adapting them to cycling might be a fun thing to do. With access to CAD software and CNC machine tools, I set out to create a design that was simple in terms of fabrication and mounting to the bicycle. The mount had to be small, light and capable of attachment to the eyelets and lowrider mounts of the fork. I also thought it would be cool to mount the clamp to my Nitto M12 rack as well.
The design was worked out with VectorWorks 8, CAD software that I have been using for the last 15 years. The CAD design allowed me to create the geometry necessary to manually program the MiniMite CNC 3 axis mill that would be used to machine the part. Two operations were required for each part, one to mill the side profile with another to mill the bore and counterbore to fit M5 or M6 socket head screws.
Each clamp requires 30 minutes of machining time with an additional 30 minutes to de-burr and polish. With the tiny milling machine using a .125" end mill with a feed rate of 10 inches per minute mass production is out of the question. "Prototypes" only at this stage. Perhaps in time and with a willing market I can find a local CNC shop to turn out a few hundred.......let me know what you think. jvgreenheron@gmail.com
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