Ever ready bike light

General cycling advice ( NOT technical ! )
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peetee
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Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by peetee »

Brucey wrote:
Carlton green wrote:…. a wizz on other (newer) technologies.


I get in trouble when I whizz on new technologies....

cheers


I’m shocked!
(And you’re lucky you weren’t).
:wink:
The older I get the more I’m inclined to act my shoe size, not my age.
cotterpins
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Joined: 6 Apr 2016, 9:38pm

Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by cotterpins »

I have an Ever Ready lamp that is identical to the cycle ones, but, the clip on the back was to clip on a top pocket/lapel like a dolly peg, so postman could use them on their rounds if needed. They also supplied BEREC labelled batteries [British Ever Ready European Company].
David9694
Posts: 908
Joined: 10 Feb 2018, 8:42am

Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by David9694 »

The bad old days of Ever Ready and Pifco...
Spa Audax Ti Ultegra; Genesis Equilibrium 853; Raleigh Record Ace 1983; “Raleigh Competition”, “Raleigh Gran Sport 1982”; “Allegro Special”, Bob Jackson tourer, Ridley alu step-through with Swytch front wheel; gravel bike from an MB Dronfield 531 frame.
robc02
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Location: Stafford

Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by robc02 »

Going back to the OP, I am certain it will be possible to retain the appearance of an old light and have the performance of a modern one. As already mentioned, an LED replacement bulb might be a good place to start, but fitting the innards of a modern light to the old casing is likely to give better results.
I haven't done it with a battery light, but the original (probably Sturmey Archer) dynamo headlight on my Humber roadster has the innards of a fairly modern Busch and Muller dynamo light inside it.
ImageHumberLight2 by SturmeyRob, on Flickr

The new lens assembly was epoxied in place of the original, and the gaps filled in with black plastic, also epoxied in place. I have since seen someone replace the black plastic with sections of front reflector - a better looking solution I think.
I thought of doing something similar with the rear light, but opted to have a Busch and Muller Seculite instead. All powered from the original (1951) Sturmey Archer Dynohub plus 4 speed (FG), of course!
ImageDSCN2187 by SturmeyRob, on Flickr
Brucey
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Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by Brucey »

a fundamental problem with such conversions is the reflector. If you ditch it and use a reflector designed for an LED the results are nearly always better (*). However with something like a Frontguard. the lens and the reflector are (IIRC) both welded together and welded to the lamp housing, so the 'easy way' of a retrofit bulb may in fact be 'the only way'.

(*) the reason for this is that with an essentially parabolic reflector, the parabola needs to be designed for the emitter type in question. There are two main issues

a) the emitter needs to be placed at or near the focal point of the parabola (obviously) and
b) the reflector needs to be able to gather all the light from the emitter and form a beam with it.

A single LED can be placed at the focal point of the reflector (which is what happens with a well designed drop-in bulb) but unlike an incandescent bulb filament it almost certainly won't throw any light backwards. This can mean that you end with a 'hole' in the beam that is projected when an LED bulb is fitted. If you want to see what I mean, you can see more or less what is going on if you mess about with some maglites. With a standard bulb one, you can easily adjust the focus to make a beam with a dark spot in the centre, or not. If you look at the revised reflector which is designed to work with an LED, the geometry is very different, with the focal point very low down, almost in contact with the reflector surface; this means the reflector captures all the light emitted and is designed not to make a beam with a hole in it.

In a system where you can't adjust the focus it is pot luck as to whether an LED drop in bulb makes a holey beam or not.

FWIW I have converted a few lights; the easiest one was a small-sized Miller dynamo headlight; it turned out that once the stock reflector is removed, the reflector and lens from a new LED dynamo headlight fitted behind the extant lens, with hardly any fiddling around at all. The net result is almost stock looking, but works far better.

cheers
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
robc02
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Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by robc02 »

Brucey wrote:....... However with something like a Frontguard. the lens and the reflector are (IIRC) both welded together and welded to the lamp housing, so the 'easy way' of a retrofit bulb may in fact be 'the only way'.

cheers


I can't be sure about which models, but I am sure that I have been able to take the glass and reflector out of old metal Ever Ready and Pifco lamps. Or is my memory deceiving me?
Brucey
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Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by Brucey »

metal ones yes I think so (didn't the front unscrew so you could replace the glass, which was real glass at one time?). But plastic ones (frontguard) not so much. The later night rider had a lens which unscrewed but I'm guessing this is too late for the OP's plan. Maybe any plastic lamp is?

I'm guessing here but IIRC the metal ones had a fairly shallow reflector; not much room there for an alternative lens and reflector...? Maybe it would have to poke into the battery compartment? It has been a long time since I've had one apart in my hands.

Image

you can see the reflector depth and the screw thread that secures the front glass in the photo above

cheers
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freiston
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Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by freiston »

I converted a Cateye HL-500 front lamp with an LED "bulb" replacement. There is a thread on another cycling forum (but not "yet another") about converting old lights to LED where someone mentioned the focussing properties of reflectors and lenses differing between LED drop-in replacements and incandescent bulbs which lead me to take a couple of not very good beam pattern shots. The shots were taken with the camera on manual including ISO (so exposure is identical) onto a wall about 8' away (torch and camera hand-held so a bit of inconsistency there) with a 17mm lens and a 1.6 crop factor sensor. The shots didn't capture the subtleties of artefacts in the beam nor did they capture the dimmer light to the peripheral of the main beam. They are further discredited in that they show the beam square on the wall (more or less) instead of the angled beam that would fall on the road at a longer distance in real-world usage. The HL-500 has both a reflector and a fresnel/prismatic style lens. The LED is definitely brighter and has fewer artefacts. The beam shot makes it look a lot more "torchy" than the real-world beam really is and it is still a useful shaped beam with a good cut-off so as not to dazzle on-comers.

LED
006.jpg
Incandescent
007.jpg
Last edited by freiston on 27 Aug 2022, 12:25am, edited 1 time in total.
Disclaimer: Treat what I say with caution and if possible, wait for someone with more knowledge and experience to contribute. ;)
Brucey
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Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by Brucey »

that is very interesting and (to my eye anyway) looks much better than it potentially could do.

cheers
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robc02
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Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by robc02 »

Brucey wrote:metal ones yes I think so (didn't the front unscrew so you could replace the glass, which was real glass at one time?). But plastic ones (frontguard) not so much. The later night rider had a lens which unscrewed but I'm guessing this is too late for the OP's plan. Maybe any plastic lamp is?
cheers


Major Nichols was one of my local bike shops in the early 1970s (while still at Reform Street), so I would associate his bikes with that era and therefore to metal bodied lamps. When the area was redeveloped (mid-late 70s) he moved premises and continued building frames for quite a few years, but I think most people would think of the Reform Street years as his heyday.
nez
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Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by nez »

You both make a very good point. Note to self - find a metal Ever Ready in plausible condition (some hopes!)
nez
Posts: 2080
Joined: 19 Jun 2008, 12:11am

Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by nez »

nez wrote:You both make a very good point. Note to self - find a metal Ever Ready in plausible condition (some hopes!)

Whoosh. Look at the price. This must have been one of Mick's carefully nurtured lights

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Ever ... 0005.m1851
Brucey
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Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by Brucey »

It says NOS and look at the number of bids....

Does the black colour signify GPO? I thought theirs were red. Could it be police issue? The clip on it doesn't look like it is meant for a bike?

cheers
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TheRedPen
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Joined: 16 Aug 2020, 10:42am

Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by TheRedPen »

The black colour doesn't signify GPO. These lights were available in four colours. Silver, black, red and blue, although silver seems to have been by far the most common / popular.

4 Ever Ready lights (front).JPG


4 Ever Ready lights (rear).JPG


The GPO lights can be identified in two ways. Firstly, 'GPO' is stamped on the bottom (bit of a giveaway). Secondly, instead of the usual lamp bracket connection on the rear, it has a spring clip which can either attach to a lamp bracket or the postman's jacket pocket.

GPO light (front).JPG


GPO light (rear).JPG


GPO light (bottom).JPG


With regard to being 'expensive rubbish', I have to disagree on both points. First off, I seem to recall that they were very cheap. The batteries were expensive though, and didn't last long if I remember correctly. And 'rubbish' is a relative term. They gave off about the same amount of light as any torch available at the time. Stick an LED bulb in one now and they're really quite usable. And remember, people don't want these to put on modern bikes. They want them to put on their vintage bikes.
thirdcrank
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Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: Ever ready bike light

Post by thirdcrank »

I've woken up in a bad dream and found I'm not dreaming.

IIRC, the last model of nEver Ready lights was the Night Rider. Literally brilliant in its day, which was ended by technically superior imports Cateye products being a widely-available example.

The only thing that can be said about these lamps now is that they comply with the relevant BSI standard and are marked accordingly. The bad news is that AFAIK, the British Standard has not been updated since the Ever Ready Night Rider was the apogee of battery lighting for pedal cycles.
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