New LED bike wheel lights (as seen @ Maker Faire!)…

The Monkeylectric m132s is a revolutionary bike light that keeps you visible – and in style. Its ruggedized design is perfect for daily commuters, urban cyclists, casual evening riders, BMX, festivals – anyone that wants to be visible after dark and not feel like a second class citizen.

The m132s creates full color graphics on your spinning bike wheel, and it provides outstanding visibility. The all-weather design is affordable and installs in minutes on Road, City, Cruiser, Mountain and BMX bikes. The lighting effects can be easily customized anytime to fit your style – mellow to extreme.

The m132s sets a new standard for bike lighting with brightness, visual quality, effects sophistication, user control and durability that far exceed what has previously been available.

Here’s the section on hacking…

Are you a hardware or software hacker that wants to customize your Monkeylectric? It’ll void your warranty, but we’ll help!

Here’s the hardware schematic for the m132s to help you on your way: m132s Schematic.

Here’s some simple hardware hacks you can do yourself:

• swap in a lithium battery (the existing low-battery warning is perfect for a lithium-protector – just make sure you turn off the power when you start seeing it)
• make handlebar mounted control buttons by using magnetic switches in parallel with the on-board buttons
• power two units from one set of batteries
• mount the batteries on opposite side of the wheel from the unit, to balance the weight

The m132s ships with a standard Atmel AVR 10-pin connector that you can use if you want to reprogram the m132s with your own code – experienced embedded systems hackers only!

And there’s a “Let it Glow!” contest on Instructables now.

Related:

Spoke POV is an easy-to-make electronic kit toy that turns your bicycle wheel into a customized display. The project includes a free schematic design, open source software for uploading and editing stored bitmap images, and a high-quality kit with all the parts necessary to build your own.