Having unboxed and inspected the new lamp it is time to prepare it for fitting to Rose, my trusty Thorn touring bike. First, I used the old wiring harness from the original headlamp as a template to cut the new cable to size:
Next, I stripped away a few centimetres of the cable sheathing to expose the two inner conductors:
Because these two conductors will be close to the road surface at the centre of the wheel hub they will need protecting with some heatshrink tubing that is supplied with the new headlamp. I use an electric heat gun to do the shrinking. It is like a hairdryer… but much much hotter!
After cutting the heatshrink tubing to the correct length, make sure to use a suitable tool for holding the work while heat is applied. Remember, the air from the gun is very hot and it only takes a few seconds to complete the task.
Here is how it looks after shrinking down:
Once cooled, another piece of heatshrink tubing is applied at the point where the two conductors enter the cable sheathing.
Now the conductors are ready to have the crimp connectors fitted. It is easy to fit them with a small pair of long-nose pliers.
As you can see, the crimps each have two sets of tabs. One set of tabs is bent over the copper conductor to create the electrical connection. The second set of tabs wrap around the insulation to add mechanical strength to the connection.
Time to add more heatshrink tubing, this time to protect the crimp connectors from damage.
The electrical connections are now prepared. We can now fit the headlamp to the bike…
The new headlamp has been fitted. As you can see, I had to replace the mounting bracket as well as the headlamp.
The crimp connectors take their place on the hub generator ready to supply power when needed.
The cable runs up the front fork as before and is held securely in place to prevent it fouling the brakes.
Rose is now ready for the next commute although it looks like she could do with a bath (the riverside path that forms part of my commute has been quite muddy recently). You can also see the rechargeable headlamp on the top of the handlebar that provides extra lighting and some redundancy if one lighting system should fail (I also run two tail lamps for the same reason).