I think that the cops won't care what colour taillights you have on it in B.C.--you'd be in enough trouble just for driving it on the road to start with, since as far as I know ATVs are not street legal here.

I could be wrong about that. Haven't driven one since I was a teenager.


Torben

I was wondering what is a Yamaha. I thought it was a tiny motorcycle.
But it is actually a tiny motorcycle with 4 wheels. It is not street-legal so it can have no light or any light on its rear.

I would have thought that these ATVs (we call them Quad-bikes in the UK) would have been idea as local transport in the icy frozen north! so why illegal?

I have seen some in the UK which are correctly registered and road legal, but they are work vehicles rather than recreational.
I have also seen them on the road in Germany, again all registered and legal (would the Germans do otherwise?) and used as local/recreational transport.

regards

JimB

Road vehicles need pollution controls, seat belts, air bags and proper lighting. Their bumper must resist a 5mph crash.
I don't think the toy will meet the requirements.

Originally Posted by kchriste

I would go with Hero's method myself. BTW, I thought that blue tail lights would be illegal in BC? Maybe add a hidden switch that can be thrown if he is pulled over. RGB leds and a PIC would really confuse them!

It's an off-road machine! Not legal for road use. You can do anything you want with its tail lights.

I didn't check the link you posted and assumed it was a motorcycle.
I guess the bears in the woods won't care.

Originally Posted by audioguru

I was wondering what is a Yamaha. I thought it was a tiny motorcycle.
But it is actually a tiny motorcycle with 4 wheels. It is not street-legal so it can have no light or any light on its rear.

Hardly tiny. That thing has a 450cc motor! Great gobs of power! The tail light serves as a brake light so people following you don't slam into you when you stop quickly on the trail (I've seen that happen - and taken the two riders to hospital with broken bones).

Who says he's going to use it on the road?

There's nothing wrong with this if it's just going to be used on a racing track.

Yeah even if they were voltage-matched you can't put LEDs in parallel due to the negative temp coefficient of forward voltage. As was already said.

Two being in series would be more efficient- as already said.

And the mcd system (again, it was already said) gives deceivingly high number for focused beams, whereas most people are more interested in "lumens" the total visible light power it emits, biased for the human eye response (a milliwatt of green scores much more lumens than a milliwatt of red because the human eye reacts to green better). Here is a conversion wizard that turns mcd and angle into lumens.

The 5mm T1-3/4 LEDs should not be run over 20mA. Preferably less. They won't burn up right away but the hotter junction degrades rapidly, over hours or days. And the hotter junction is less efficient anyways and doubling the current makes less than double the light output.

Size each resistor by (Vin-Vled)/(current per LED). The voltage will be 13.8V-14.6v with the engine running so like (14.4v-3.4V)/(.015)=733 ohms.
Wattage is (Vin-Vled)*(current per LED). Don't run a 1/4W resistor at 1/4W that's like a maximum when mounted ideally and the enclosure doesn't get hot. 1/8W would give an excellent safety margin on a 1/4W resistor.

Originally Posted by audioguru

Road vehicles need pollution controls, seat belts, air bags and proper lighting. Their bumper must resist a 5mph crash.
I don't think the toy will meet the requirements.

Quad bikes are a long way short of been toys, and are motorbikes more than cars - so your car requirements don't apply.

In the UK (and presumably most of the world?), you can buy two types - off road ones, and street legal road going versions.

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

Quad bikes are a long way short of been toys, and are motorbikes more than cars - so your car requirements don't apply.

In the UK (and presumably most of the world?), you can buy two types - off road ones, and street legal road going versions.

Well, here in the U.S., it veries from state to state, but in Missouri, they are illegal on the roads. And as far as I know, there's only one version of ATV we can buy over here.

Now this is cool. Street legal ATV quad conversion.
http://streetlegalatv.com/

Originally Posted by Mikebits

Now this is cool. Street legal ATV quad conversion.
http://streetlegalatv.com/

Hot diggity!!!

I have seen a few 3-wheel open motorcycles on the roads. They had a single steered wheel at the front like a motorcycle and two driven wheels at the back on each side like a small car.

The only pics in google are 3-wheel enclosed cars in India and childs electric sidewalk toys.

Made in Canada
http://spyder.brp.com/