Ski Builders Forum

Hi,
Any thoughts on how K2 got the old Merlin VI's and the Fours to light up? It seems like all the materials needed to light up the skis is in the little raised box.
I should have bought a pair at the swap and peeled the box off. Anyone done this or willing to??
Thanks for your insights.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity
Pretty silly.

The brilliant plan would be to put that on some skis, and then when you come home from a long day on the hill you plug the skis in, and provide power to the electrical grid, thus saving the planet.

...off to kickstarter, brb

Of course, Piezoelectronics! Duh.

It was this sentence that really helped bring things to light for me.

"The piezoelectric effect is understood as the linear electromechanical interaction between the mechanical and the electrical state in crystalline materials with no inversion symmetry."

twizzstyle wrote:The brilliant plan would be to put that on some skis, and then when you come home from a long day on the hill you plug the skis in, and provide power to the electrical grid, thus saving the planet.

...off to kickstarter, brb

Hook up a USB port and charge your phone

Piezoelectric boot warmers!

I don't care if the light was a gimmick; I think it was ridiculous and rad.

I still ride my K2 with the piezo lights

K2 had a slogan that said. "When it's blinkin' it's thinkin". The idea is not new. It was a circuit that would take vibration frequencies and convert it into electrical energy an dissipate it by lighting the LED. Later on, they figured out how to cancel out vibrations with placing dampening devices at calculated locations. If I remember correctly, they had a lot of warranty issues until they figured out what was going on. The kids would take the ski and slap it hard on a hard surface which would break the circuit and then turn it in for warranty. Those kids always figure out a way don't they.