Sturmey Archer X-FDD technical

I have got the hub brake on the custom wheel working now.  I had to wait a couple of days for the special Sturmey Archer brake cable.  Now I have one, I think I should be able to replace it with a standard brake cable without too much heartache when the time comes.  The brake is about as good as the Tektro V-brake which came with the bike, but it will still be just as good in the pouring rain.  Hub brakes behave a little differently from the rim and disc brakes I have used, the best way I can describe it is that instead of a constant braking force being applied at the wheel when you apply a given force at the lever, the braking force seems to grow over a period of a few seconds when a constant force is applied at the lever.  The result is a nice quick stop but to the uninitiated the brakes feel odd.  I do quite like the fact that I won’t have to do any maintenance on the brake for a very long time.

The other feature of the hub I have been playing with is the integral dynamo.  I am quite happy with my existing battery LED lights and I am not currently planning to replace them with dynamo lights.  The hub outputs 6 V of AC which is great for filament lamps but sucks for LEDs and lots of other devices.  I purchased a bridge rectifier from Maplin for 27p to convert the 6V AC into 8 and a bit V DC.  I connected the output from this to both a fixed positive voltage regulator (£1.02) to produce 5V DC, and a battery pack (89p) containing 4 rechargeable Ni-Cad AA batteries.  This allows the Ni-Cad batteries to charge when no other load is attached, and they work in series with the dynohub to power a device when connected.

The whole lot is inside a clip-sealing tupperware box, and the 5V DC and ground wires are connected to a pair of USB ports:

The end result is able to charge devices which are able to charge from USB:

I’m planning to mount the tupperware box on the now unused rim-brake bosses tomorrow.