Rick

The light housing itself can make a good ground. The light bracket and the contact surface that it is bolted to are not a good ground. I used the crimp on connectors that have a hole in the center. With one on each end of a wire I ran one on the headlight mount, against the headlight. I put the other against the fork hole. I also sanded the paint off were the connector touched the fork. You can test this with a bare wire. there is only one other reference to a problem with the SL hub that I have found on the web.

Son SL wiring problems

unterhausen

As I suspected, the problem is at the fork crown. There is paint where there shouldn't be paint. It looks like there was something added to the fork crown, but there's paint on the brake mounting surface. I am wondering if that crown is stainless, you could test with a magnet. If it is, I suggest taking the paint off the front of the brake mounting surface.

You have to get a good short to ground. There really is no other way to get the ground in place other than getting a good ground path to the fork.

unterhausen

Are you the original owner of this bike? I would ask Hamsten about this issue. It's possible that face should have been masked, but wasn't. In any event, you can just knock the paint off the face of the brake mount and remember to keep it covered with grease so it doesn't rust. Getting rid of that aluminum washer was a good idea.

samkl 

Thanks. I forgot to mention that I actually DID sand the paint off that area before I tested everything again. It didn’t work, with and without the ground wire connected.

Also, I picked up a multimeter. Current runs from the fork dropout to the light.

I might try to find a shop in Chicago that knows dynamos. Makes me wonder if there’s something wrong with the hub.

L134 

I have zero experience with your components but since nothing suggested so far has worked I'll ask what may be dumb question. Does the Edelux light have an on off switch? I have a B&M light that has a switch which only works when the wheel is spinning. Punch it all one wants while the wheel is not spinning and nothing changes. Spin the wheel, push the switch and, voila, if off it will turn on and if on it will turn off. Otherwise, I have no ideas.

Rick

The edelux uses what they call a reed switch. It has off, senso mode and on positions. The thin plastic black ring toward the back of the light rotates on the light housing. You can see symbols on it. My edelux is put up somewhere because I have switched to the Klite that is always on or shared with the usb chargers. I always left my edelux in the on position only.

Rick

From the picture it appears that the headlight might be in senso mode. If you stand in front of the bicycle facing the rear then you would turn the reed switch to the left so the 1 lines up with the painted mark on the light housing. This is the on position.

samkl 

No, it's in the on position. I've had this same model light for years on another bike, so I'm very familiar with it.

unterhausen

Just to make sure, did you check for continuity between the non-drive side contact plate and the light housing? How about between the two contact plates? One failure I have heard of with these lights is the positive contact plate making its way through the insulator and shorting to the fork.

samkl 

Thanks for the suggestion. Just to be clear, SHOULD there be continuity between the non-drive side contact plate and the light housing? And between the two contact plates? (And by light housing, you mean the aluminum light body?)

Edit: The multimeter tells me current runs from the NDS dropout to the light body, and from the DS to NDS dropout.

Rick

samkl: You are having allot of trouble with this setup. I had an initial problem but quickly resolved it. Do you have another headlight that you can hook up and test. for comparison.

samkl 

Mystery solved! Sort of. It’s the light. I connected another dynamo light to the fork, at Hampsten’s suggestion, and sure enough, when I spun the wheel it worked.

I assume this is just a defective light? Like I said it worked for 1 day then kaput, which seems odd.

unterhausen

That's really great. Was the light purchased from Peter White?

Tourist in MSN

There is the chance that removing the light made the connection at the mount work again after for some odd reason it stopped working.

If you have another means to test the light unit, I would suggest you do so. I have tested dyno powered lights with a low voltage battery, but I am not familiar with your light so I can't make any suggestions how to without using a dynohub.

Rick

I had the exact same setup and the light wouldn't work. I sent the wheel to Peter White Cycles. He checked it out and found nothing wrong. When it came back I put the wheel back in and everything worked fine.

pdlamb

I didn't think a dyno hub was as complex as a computer. Half the time there's a computer problem, it's solved by the IT guy laying hands on the thing!

steelbikeguy

Sometimes unplugging and reconnecting works by scraping off a bit of oxidation off of the terminals.
Sometimes the protective plating is worn off of the underlying steel substrate, and the steel oxidizes very quickly and that oxidation (i.e. rust) is a very effective insulator. Unplugging and reconnecting can sometimes realign the mating surfaces to that it uses a spot where the plating is still good.

As I've mentioned before, I've spent a career that included figuring out why electronics stopped working. Connectors have been a big source of trouble, and using cheap connectors usually leads to unhappiness. The tin plating used on cheap connectors is usually not good for more than a handful of disconnections.
However, when commercial lights are sold with this type of connector, it's hard for the average user to appreciate just how marginal they are.

As such, the old advice to unplug and re-plug everything when troubleshooting a problem is fairly good.
It's also the basis for the old technique of giving the equipment a smack, which can make connections move a bit and scrape off a light layer of oxidation.

Steve in Peoria

Rick

I have the couplers on my frame so I purchased some of the supernova crimp on gold plated connectors when I setup my edelux. I later found that Sinewave sells sauder type gold plated connectors for below 1/3 the price. I ran a wire between were the bolt goes through the headlight mount and were the fork crown hole is. This solved the grounding problem. i have the Son SL hub. the SL model uses a contact plate on the inside of the right dropout to send the power to the headlight. there is a machined flat with three holes in a circle. A dielectric with three hollow nipples is pushed in the holes first. Then the contact plate with three serrated extensions is pushed into the dielectric. The contact plate uses a smaller spade connector for the wire attachment. This allows for easier wheel removal and installs. The three machined holes on my fork dropout are off enough that the dielectric with the contact plate will fall out and hang there when I pull out the wheel. I solved this problem with a little bit of shoe goo. Because I have a steel frame, Co-Motion suggested we don't run the wire on the inside of the fork. I agreed and there are three cable guides For the wire.