With a little emory cloth a new bulb and a fresh battery my 90 year old headlamp came immediately to life. But honestly, even though my headlamp was working, by today’s standards its a fail. Today we expect usb rechargeable led lites with multiple functions that sync to our gps cycling computers. My Elgins headlamp has not nor will ever have this kind of functionality — but maybe it could get just a few upgrades.
After 90 years the plastic lens was brittle and yellowed. A few attempts at cleaning left me with only a mild improvement in the removal of the yellow cast. If you’ve noticed, I’ve got a thing for 3D printing. That said, how could I resist printing up a new lens? Designing and printing a replacement lens is a simple task, but clear SLA resins yielding actual clear parts is almost unicorn. But I was up for giving it a try. The key to clear SLA parts is minimal support structures, proper curing along with awesome cleaning and polishing. Two lens were sacrificed to inability to polish without damaging the part, impossible to clamp the lens flew from my fingers, almost with regularity. The cure ended up beg printing another set with tabs for clamping the parts to the table. This allowed for aggressive polishing without damage, yielding clear (though not crystal) results. Having sorted the lens out, I moved onto the guts.
The things that I could easily improve were limited to the bulb, reflector and battery. A rechargeable battery and a strong LED lamp were a must. So all the parts needed for my upgrades were cheaply and readily sourced through Amazon (shopping list below). Delivered to my door in two days, enough to refurbish 2 lamps, all for around 70$ (yes, I know that a new lamp could be purchased for less, but what’s the fun in that). The only other addition needed was to provide a water-proof removable connection from the USB charger to the lamp.
The original brass socket was serviceable. But it would need to be removed in order to replace the badly pitted reflector whose finish was flaking off. So I drilled it out and sized up the hole in the ground rail to accommodate the its replacement. With the old reflector out, I placed the new reflector and tacked in the new socket with a dab of solder, securing it to the rail.
Wanting to keep the old school switch… I wired the socket through the existing ground rail and soldered in a new lead from the rail to the new connector. Then attached the socket hot to the connector. The insulating washer on one of the rail’s rivets was deteriorating, so it was replaced. I drilled a hole through the housing to accommodate the charging port connector and installed it.
The USB charger was supplied with a connector for the battery. But because I was installing an external connector for charging, it was necessary to split the supplied wiring and splice each side to the new connector. All was tested after installing and securing the battery in place along with the new lens and bulb. A nice bright old school bike light.
Here is the Amazon shopping list for reference…
