http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dynamodirk/magnic-light-get-new-energy
This is neat.
Magnic light is a dynamo* driven light that uses eddy currents to power a LED headlamp. This means it never touches the wheel, it merely resides near the moving brake surface of any metal (steel, aluminum, etc) and draws power from that. It also has a tail light component that does the same thing, with the added feature of becoming brighter when you brake – like brake lights on a car. Watch the video for more details.
I think mounting it to the brake pad is dumb but they have a fork bracket to get around that. I backed it. If you like it, you should too.
Kickstarter is a neat way to help small builders leapfrog into limited production runs that – if they’re successful – they may use to springboard into further development. Make your pledge and it’s held in escrow until they hit their $$$ mark, at which point they’re on the hook to deliver whatever it is they’ve promised to deliver for your contribution.
This is the second Kickstarter I’ve supported. The first I forgot to blog about, it was the titanium bicycle lock the TiGr.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1051734209/tigr-titanium-lock-as-cool-as-your-bike
Also a neat project, the video is better than I am at telling the tale. The TiGr lock was rather well received, and though I had a few things I’d like to see different he’s steaming ahead and going into full production (full site goes live tonight at midnight) which I think is great.
There is a lot of junk on Kickstarter, but a lot of great stuff up there too. Take a look sometime.
Onward.
