Originally Posted by
Salubrious
The above circuit will cause the LED to light up with a more constant light. It does not make a lot of light at any rate, but its better than nothing! Since the pulsing in the LED off state is normally not used, the result of using this circuit will be that the load will be a bit higher, so it will be harder to pedal. But not by much, I suspect.
With a rectifier, the total light energy output will double, but it is true that that light energy has to come from somewhere and there's only one place for it to come. The first rule of everything: there is no such thing as a free lunch. If you were using a 3 watt dyno at full power, you would go from 1.5 watts to 3. I don't know how easy that would be to notice. Maybe I'll find out tomorrow.