paddle plugs to attach cyo to son hub

[Seth Vidal]

What do you call the paddle plugs you would use to attach a cyo light
to a son hub. They are 5mm wide and I don't know what they are called
but I need a couple of them to attach this light.

Also - does anyone have a nicer/quicker way of attaching them that
doesn't involve nearly as much cursing as it has been my experience
they do (especially when it is either wet or cold).

Thanks,
-sv

[Philip Williamson]

Peter White calls them "connectors" on his site. I've called them
"spade connectors," but I'm not an expert. I think PJW has them for a
couple bucks apiece.

The nicer way to attach a lighting wire to a dynamo hub is called "a
Shimano." I was impressed with their slick little plastic doodad that
finishes off the wire. Strip the wires, poke 'em through the plastic
box, fold 'em over and snap the cover on. Voila! Regardez votre plug!
Not two independently-minded spade connectors writhing around on the
end of a wire, but a single unit that snaps right onto the hub.

To make my SON wires easier to attach, I now mount the hub with the
spades pointing straight up, so I can see and feel them in front of
the fork. The lighting wires come around the outside of the fork to
reach the spades, which leaves me more grip area on the wire, and a
cleaner angle of attack than hiding the wire behind the fork blade. It
leaves more wire visible, but I no longer care. With the black SON,
you can barely see it...

Philip

Philip Williamson
www.biketinker.com

[Steve Palincsar]

On Tue, 2012-01-03 at 22:45 -0500, Seth Vidal wrote:
> What do you call the paddle plugs you would use to attach a cyo light
> to a son hub. They are 5mm wide and I don't know what they are called
> but I need a couple of them to attach this light.

spade connectors?

>
> Also - does anyone have a nicer/quicker way of attaching them that
> doesn't involve nearly as much cursing as it has been my experience
> they do (especially when it is either wet or cold).

Some people have cut the cable and installed a connector plug inline.
When they remove the wheel they leave the short bit connected to the
wheel and separate the cable at the inline connector.

[Liesl]

Hi Seth,

I went through several machinations when I got my SON hubbed wheel and
wnated both the wheel and my E3 to go back and forth between my Saluki
and my protovelo bleriot. I used Peter White's "gold connectors" and
they work fabulously. I put one set on very short wires coming from
the hub, then had standing wiring running up the fork blade to the
canti brake hanger and up to the handlebars. Each end of this
standing wire had gold connectors, and each of the two bikes had this
standing wire set-up. then the E3 got the same treatment as the hub:
a short wire with gold connectors. I can move both the wheel and the
light back and forth effortlessly and do it in very low light. I
really like that I can take the light with me easily and quickly when
I park the bike in a public location. I used the rubber handlebar
mount for the E3 on m'bars. The whole system works like a charm. I'm
about to set up my Trek 620 the same way so the light can move over to
it as well.

good luck,
Liesl in also eerliy snow-free Minnesota

[William]

I've got a mental prototype (aka "a hare-brained fantasy") of a magnetic connector similar to Apple laptops for my SON/Edelux.  With my meager fabrication skills on that small-scale, I imagine it would have to go through many prototype stages before it would be any good at all, but I believe the concept should work.  

[Liesl]

Whoa William, I like this idea! Go forth with great vigor and keep us
posted!
-liesl

[Seth Vidal]

Wow,
That makes good sense to me. Afaik there should never be any stress
on the cable from the light to the hub so a magnet should be plenty
strong enough to keep it connected.

I wonder how easily a prototype could be made. I should spend an
afternoon in a radioshack looking at connectors.

-sv

[William]

Seth

K+J magnetics has all shapes and sizes of rare earth (neodymium) magnets.  They have a nice website, and I've bought lots of stuff from them for unrelated projects.  My idea is round flat disk magnets, with the poles aimed along the flat part of the round disk shaped magnet.  It's called diametric magnetization.

Like this model:

http://www.kjmagnetics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=R424DIA 

That way the magnets will self-align to one another by just getting them close.  Wet and cold (and DARK) won't matter in the slightest.  That aligns your two contacts every single time.  Round makes it easier to fabricate a weatherproof exterior that still allows the magnets to rotate when they are self-aligning.  The thing I haven't worked through is how to put the contacts on there where they are reliably sandwiched without scrubbing each other off when the self-alignment part is happening.  Maybe a plastic spacer, that also tunes the pull force by separating the magnets by just the right amount. 

[Eric Norris]

I'll buy one. Let me know when you're in production. 

–Eric N

Sent from my iPhone 4S 

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