Homebrew PVC headlight mount

[Ground Loop]

I begged and pleaded with Segway to sell me just a Headlight Mount -- the same one they include with every headlights they ship. No dice. You have to buy their headlight to get their nice velcro post-mount. It seems totally rediculous to me, but whatever.

I already have a perfectly good bike light, so I wasn't going to buy their $60 light and throw it away just for the mount. So for $3 at Home Depot I got some PVC to carve up. A "T" fitting cut in half fits the upper control shaft perfectly:
http://www.trix.com/albums/Segway/lm_pieces.jpg

The handlebar mount fits too loose on the T itself, so I screwed in an adapter fitting of the right diameter. (A better-stocked plumbing store might have a T of the right size in one piece.)
http://www.trix.com/albums/Segway/lm_assembled.jpg

I used ordinary 2-sided velcro strap to hold it on, with a rubber strip underneath the mount to keep it from sliding.
http://www.trix.com/albums/Segway/lm_mounted_close

The standard battery-mount works fine as-is.
http://www.trix.com/albums/Segway/lm_mounted_far.jpg

All in all, piece of cake!

[Zorba9]

Hey Ground Loop! Great job on your headlight mount. A little grey spraypaint and you're set. Isn't it neat what you can find at Home Depot! Most of my "M" series mounts and attachments are metal brackets and/or pvc fittings adapted from parts found at Lowes or Home Depot.
American ingenuity - we WILL find a way. Poor Osama and Saddam, they just didn't have a clue at what we are capable of!!

KOG

Zorba9.....

[sailboss]

Love it! Where would we be without PVC pipe and velcro? You may be able to just split the back and "clip" the light in place with a little finaglin'.
I've built some great potato cannons with the stuff.

Also, most PVC electrical conduit is gray to start with. Gives me another reason to go the Home depot this rainy (no glide) Sunday.

[8]

"The seventh deadly sin is --Pizza!" -- Jimmy Buffett

[Murray Fisher]

Great engineering for the headlight mount. I think of PVC pipe every time I want to adapt something to the Segway. Some are experiments that I am not too enthused about and others work great.
I split a pvc fitting and put a brass piano hinge on it and then a brass suitcase clasp, which I bent to fit. Lined it with some pipe insulation also split and cemented to the pvc.....I use it for an upper support for my car bumper type carrier....it works great and is quick and easy. Then I made another one that supports a piece of that wire closet type coated (white) material that I bent to make a carrier for my lawn chair....it works the same way but is slung as low as possible. The lawn chair cross piece fits in it and I quick velcro the upper part to the handlebars. It unfastens quickly for a nice seat for parades and grandkids ball games and lunch in the Park etc. Then I made another for a stand which works but doesn't look very pretty, to support the Seg. I got an aluminum golf bag cart at a yard sale for a dollar and took off the folding handle mechanism, which is a kind of serrated thing with a big knob that locks or releases it in any position. It is mounted HIGH on the CS and lays against the shaft while riding and when I stop I just flip it out forward and it supports the Seg just fine. Those PVC pipes are great. I wish I could put pix on here, but I don't know how. EMail is the best I can do.


Murray Fisher

[GadgetmanKen]

Nice job Ground Loop.

Ground Loop what was the diameter of the pvc pipe you started with?



"Wouldn't it be cool, if?...is like Folgers in my cup"

[ZoliHonig]

Very cool.
Good work!

[8]-Zoli[8]

[segwayowner]

very cool.... how much did the pipe cost?

DES: Segway owner....
it has a nice ring to it

[Ground Loop]

GadgetmanKen: The T fitting is a 1 1/4" x 1 1/4" x 1/2"

They didn't have the 'perfect' size for the handlebar mount, so I used a threaded adapter to bring up the outside diameter a bit. Now it's about the largest size you could fit the handlebar mount over.

I had to sand the inside of the "U" a bit to make it smooth and flush.

The whole thing was less than $2 or $3, if you count the "maybe" parts I didn't use. This stuff is easy. Bring your mount down to Home Depot or Lowes and use their PVC isle as a tinkertoy set. There will probably be some other dude there doing the same thing, looking for that perfect-sized fitting.

sailboss, cool idea! If I had left more than half of the round side on there, it probably would have 'snapped' right into place over the shaft. An idea to try next time.

Now how do I mount this GPS... :)

[GlideMaster]

<center>Great job. Necessity: the mother of invention. </center>

<center>http://www.segwaychat.com/forum/avatars/glidemaster.gif</center>

[SegwayUtah]

Murray,

If you can e-mail photos, here's the best way to get them up for people to see:

Step 1:
E-mail each photo, separately, to: segway.photos@buzznet.com
Put the title for the photo in the subject box; if you want to write a description, put that in the message (body) of your e-mail.

Step 2 (simple option):
Go to segway.buzznet.com and find your photo. Then copy-and-paste the address for the photo from the address line (URL) of your browser and include it here in your e-mail.

There are slightly more complicated ways, but this should do well for you.

Chris

[terryp]

Nice job, Ground Loop. It's hard to understand why Segway offers tail lights that you can pick up at any bike shop, but won't sell something like the light mount, that you can't buy anywhere else, without making you buy a light too. (It's probably not something Doug will be able to answer either.) But if they don't want our money, we'll design our own, and save money in the process.

I don't know about the white PVC, but the gray (schedule 40?) PVC can be easily heated with a heat gun or in an oven until it becomes pliable, and formed to the shape you need. If the diameter is a little too small for the CS, use that as a form once it's reached temperature, and hold it in place until it cools.


Practicing safe Segs in Seattle

[Stan671]

GL, that is a great homemade light mount. I have the one from Segway and have modified it and the mount on the Solo Logic light so that they mount on the front of the control shaft and not the side. I prefer this position because it is more evenly balanced - looks-wise.

Stan Dobrowski

[Ground Loop]

Stan671, great idea. Do you have any pictures of your "front mount". Is it a right-angle extension of some sort, or a feature of your light?

The reason I ask is that it's already clear that my light mount has a, umm, certain interference with the male anatomy.

So I raised it higher, but mounting on the front of the control shaft would be even better.

[Stan671]

It is the stock Segway Solo Logic lighting system. I will post some pictures of how I have the Segway Solo Logic light contorted to mount on the front of the control shaft.

I just noticed that you have yours mounted on the upper control shaft. The Segway mounting peg is designed to mount on the lower shaft. This gets it out of the way and keeps it from interfering with the adjustment of the handlebar height.

Do you think there is a PVC pipe large enough to mount on the lower part of the control shaft?

Stan Dobrowski

[wheels]

quote:Originally posted by Zorba9


American ingenuity - we WILL find a way. Poor Osama and Saddam, they just didn't have a clue at what we are capable of!!



I would like to add to the above list, a quote from 'Ground Loop's post:

"I begged and pleaded with Segway to sell me just a Headlight Mount -- the same one they include with every headlights they ship. No dice. You have to buy their headlight to get their nice velcro post-mount. It seems totally rediculous to me, but whatever".

Attention Segway ! !
'Ground Loop' proves that all the 'Clueless' aren't foreigners.

Would Segway only sell you a complete new headlight if you broke and wanted to replace just the mount ?

I state with great pride, If Toyota had conducted business (particularly in the formative years) as Segway is doing now, we (Toyota) would be on the Daewoo heap instead of overtaking Ford to become number 2 in volume in the U.S.A.

Segway HT... Great machine. Segway LLC.... At the rate they are going will end up like Daewoo automobiles. Too bad, there's no comparison between the two products.



"Life's a wheelie when you're on a Segway"

[BenjiUK]

I begged and pleaded too, but got the same response that I had to buy the whole unit. I could understand it if the lights themselves were a segway manufactured unit, but they must be buying them in and sticking them in a box with the mount.

I did make a lighting bar for the seg which attached to the threads in the wheel arch, with a little tinkering I think this could be the way to go, it keeps the lights nice and low and as the tube extended to the back of the seg meant I can have a fixed rear light which is possibly more important than the front for visability purposes.

Some pics of the prototype which I bent over my knee are here..
http://homepage.mac.com/trilby/PhotoAlbum9.html

B.

[rrschnell]

I just posted pics of my PVC & Velcro Light-Bar and Garrity Front Light at [u]http://segway.buzznet.com</u> if your interested . . . and just a little bit handy.

Be safe,
Dick[u]</u>

[redhummer]

GPS Mount out of plastic. I am using a Garmin eMap that has worked out great on our outing. The mount is very simple to make, getting the plastic maybe the hard part of it all. I have some photos of it on my web site, and I think this idea should work for many other GPS units. The link below tells more about the mount.

http://www.oursegways.com/technotes/GPS-Mount.html

I now have to built a mount for a light that was designed for a biker helmet, the light is not a big deal, just got to find a good way to mount the battery pack.

Allan


Allan Madar
Houston TX 77070