How To... Fit your LEDs!

SO, I've now fitted a SECOND set of LEDs to my scooter... RED this time. I know, I know, it may be overdoing it a little, but I got so overexcited fitting the blue LEDs that I forget to take any photos for the blog! Thought I'd best get some more lights and record it properly this time :o)

STEP 1 - prop your scooter upside-down somewhere SAFE and STURDY! (and possibly somewhere that you mum won't mind getting a little bit dirty)

(I chose to do prop mine against a glass-topped table over my partner's favourite rug.)

STEP 2 - clean the area that you plan to stick your lights to... dirt is not sticky, and your lights will fall off in a couple of weeks! (The orange thing that you can see in this photo is the blue LED strip that I've already attached, ignore this, I'll be sliding in the red LED strip next to it :o)

STEP 3 - measure up your lights. Be very careful to plan the exact route of the LED strip AND where you plan to stick your battery pack. When you cut the lights, make sure you cut along the dotted line, it's there for a reason!

STEP 4 - Peel the protective paper away from the gum, you don't need to do this all in one go, take your time, you don't want to have to stick it down more than once!

STEP 5 - Stick It Down! 

STEP 6 - Run your wires as sensibly as you can... every different kind of scooter will be different, so think about what will happen when you fold your scooter... spray from puddles, and whether the wires will tug when you 360 the handles. For my scooter, a Micro Rocket, this is where I put the wires / battery pack;

The battery pack is fixed to the scooter with double sided sticky pads... This means that it's reversible if I hate the lights (yeah right...) and also it absorbs the bumps when you're riding so the batteries don't get shaken about. IMPORTANT - make sure you can still open the battery pack once it's fixed to the scooter... batteries don't last forever!

I've got a convenient gap in the shaft of my scooter, and I think most scooters have something similar. This is a great place to run you wires and it's protected from outside forces.

STEP 7 - Put your batteries in. (yes I'm dragging it out now, but wait until you see the final photo ;o)

STEP 8 - TURN IT ON BEYHATCH!!!!!!

(In Daylight)

(At Night)

(Blue and Red LEDs at the same time.... AWESOME!)

Happy Pimping! 

xxx

LEDs fitted! I'm Glowing!

Pretty magical huh?! Tomorrow I'll show full details of how to do it :o) Scoot-on!

LEDs Arrive!

Lordy Lordy my LED strips have arrived, and they are so beautiful! I've put tomorrow morning aside to get them fixed on, I'm really excited to see if I can get them to fit so they dont look too 'bodged'... and where am I going to stick the battery packs?! Excitement much.

I Want Neons.

My Scooter WILL look this cool!

If a car can have it, why can't my scooter?! Upon googling neons, it appears that most cars go with this option;

Not sure I'm comfortable having glass tubes stuck to my undercarriage... Think I'll go with the L.E.D option! Have just ordered some strips of LEDs, and I cannot wait till they arrive! I'm gonna be scooting on a cloud of blue neon. Yes please.

Lucky find!

COINCIDENCE? FATE?

I've found my first in-house entertainment system! Saw a beautiful Green iPod shuffle in the window of a pawn broker today, I think it's 2nd Generation, and for £15! Bargain!

I know it's not quite a nano... I'll upgrade to that one day though.

I think I've got the attachment process figured - It's all about Velcro! It means I can quickly remove the shuffle from my scooter for charging / syncing etc. Check It Out;

Wax On.

Wax Off.

In-scoot Entertainment System

SO.... next challenge. I think I'm going to look at the basics of my in-house entertainment system! Basically, I need a MP3 player of sorts, and then a way of attaching it. I'm going to focus on something 'pod'-ish. Most my other gear is made by Apple, so it seems sensible to keep it in the family.

My first thought was one of these;

I mean SERIOUSLY, how good would that look on my handlebars? Plus, on a non-scooter related subject, you can buy a little strap thing that turns them into a watch!

Lordy Lordy! Beautiful huh? Unfortunately, I have to be realistic. First of all the iPod nano 6th generation starts in excess of £100, which, considering i'm going to be experimentally strapping to a scooter, may not be the best idea. I'd cry if it pinged off in the middle of the night and some drunken chav found it on his way back to his squat.

So I'm going to set my sights a little lower and go back to the old classic ipod shuffle. The 2nd / 3rd generations are quite reasonably priced now at around £15-£25, and i wouldn't feel quite so bad if I saw it in a pawn shop 2 days after losing it. Plus they come in a lovely vibrant green colour. Look (!);

I've put in a few bids on ebay and will let you know how I get on. Now to figure out how to attach it...

Tiny Bright Light!

My light arrived today. First impressions? It's TINY! The photo on the web (see previous post) is a little misleading, although if I'm honest, it offers no size comparison, so the preconceived size was all in my head... here is it's actual size;

It's got 4 light settings; a) slow strobe, b) slow double flash strobe, c) fast strobe, d) full on.

It's a clever design, fits really snuggly around the shaft of my scooter and looks neat! It's also incredibly bright!

I'm thinking I might move it to the centre of the handle bars, but that'll mean taking the shaft apart... maybe another day ;o) I think I'll get rid of the handle clip too (the bit above the light) as I never fold my handles down. Perhaps it'll be useful for a pimp later on though?

Knogg Frogg!

Mother has just ordered one of these for me;

They look pretty nifty huh? Nice contemporary design, smooth lines and olive green to go with the beast! (I'm trying out various names for my scooter, none successful so far.... all sound too phallic. Suggestions on a postcard?)

Funky scooter / bike lights; http://tinyurl.com/35gt5mk

Looks poo...

The drinks holder was easy enough to fit, clever clamp mechanism that splits in 2 means you don't have to take the scooter apart. It certainly does what it says... And it can fit a bottle of wine / can of beer in it. 'Open beer can' not advised, I tried it and it got all shaken up and frothed all over everything!

To be honest, I'm not sure it's visually right for my scooter. My master plan is to do some 'adult' pimping; for comfort, style and looks. Do i really need a drink holder? Am I going to get thirsty on my 3 minute scoots between gigs? No. Not really. But the mechanism has got me thinking; it's a nice clip on / clip off jobby, might be useful for when I get round to attaching speakers.

1st Pimp - drinks holder!

1st Pimp! I've got a fair few ideas that I'll be putting into action over the next few weeks, but I'm keeping it simple to start off with by looking at current accessories. There's plenty out there but, understandably (!), only a couple of items fit into my 'adult pimp' vibe.

Arrived today;

It's a beer pouch! I went for the green one as my scooter is 'olive' green, but there's loads of different designs. Check them out; http://tinyurl.com/7hspgr4


The mechanism looks simple enough to put on, so I'll get a pick up as soon as I've got it on!

Over and Out.

New Scooter! - Micro Rocket

I've been riding one of these;

for the last 6 years.... (not this exact one, I gave mine away to a mate...) It became incredibly rattley and had a bit of rust (6 years though, good bit of wear eh?). 

In 2011 the wife bought a brand spanking new one!! and it looks like this; 

Pretty fierce huh? 

I think so too... But given the bulkiness of this scooter, and the fact that I'm a fully grown adult who rides my scooter through the middle of 'Party Capital' Brighton most nights...  I figured I might need to pimp it a bit in order to secure the Street Cred that I deserve.... This blog will follow my progress. It will therefore be a relatively short blog.