Luminous wheels weren’t the first LED equipped wheels in history, but they are certainly one of the best products in this category.
Intended for first and foremost for fun (more on that later), these decent quality wheels will add your skates (rollerskates, longboards and scooters, too) some eye-catching flair.
The beginning of Luminous brand are humble – only a couple of light emitting wheels made under Seba and later on, FR brand. Universkate (owner of both brands) has finally decided to make Luminous their own thing. Nowadays, they release wheels for multiple recreational roller sports.
How Luminous wheels work?
If you have ever seen an electrostatic generator, which produces electricity via rubbing metal brushes against electrodes, you’ll quickly figure out the concept behing Luminous wheels. They produce light thanks to three elements:
- A dedicated spacer with steel ring, which is to be used instead stock spacer.
- A wheel with built-in metal ring, to which LEDs are connected.
- LEDs.
It is worth to note that spacers will work only with 8 mm axles. If your skates use 6 mm ones, you can buy dedicated adapters. When it comes to rollerskates, longboards and scooters, this problem simply does not exist, as none of them use 6 mm axles.
Spacers themselves are made out of plastic, unlike most of the regular ones. The only metal part is outer ring which rubs against inner ring of wheel core. Using plastic as material is necessary to make the part fitting tight, but still allow for inserting axle in it. It is ideal is spacer remains unmoved during ride – then whole thing can work its’ magic.
When two metal rings rub against themselves, electricity is generated, allowing LED lights to glow!
And when they glow, it look fabulous!
What are downsides?
If you are an experienced skater, you’ll be quick to notice that these wheels slow you down, lose speed much faster and their roll is less smooth. This is because there’s a constant friction between wheel core and spacer. There’s no way to get around this, unfortunately. In theory, a mechanism based on electromagnetic induction could work, removing this inconvenience, but in reality there are number of reasons why we won’t see such wheels – main one is cost.
Second issue is that LED equipped wheels are not suited for hardcore freeride. Jumps and slides can damage the lights pretty fast if you go truly hard on them.
However, we must state that current glowing wheels are much better in this aspect than early ones, with lower failure rate. So it isn't like one of the LEDs will fail right after first jump. Keep in mind they won't last forever, though.
If above inconveniences are not a deal-breaker for you, you can see Luminous wheels below:
Inline skate Luminous wheels (sizes from 72 mm up to 125 mm)
Rollerskate Luminous wheels (sizes 58 mm and 62 mm)
Longboard Luminous wheels (sizes 65 mm and 70 mm)
125 mm wheels for scooters (the rec/commuting ones)
What are alternatives?
If above inconveniences are deal-breakers for you, there are some alternatives to make your skates standing out of the crowd during warm, summer nights:
Glitter wheels – like FR Glitter. They do not emit light on their own, but shine when there are light sources available.
FR Street Kings sparkling – made for slides enthusiasts and have small flint stones embedded in urethane. These produce sparks when you slide! Downside is, they are available only in 80 mm diameter.
Powerslide LED Graphix wheels – totally different approach to the subject. These have small, battery-powered LED screens, which can generate more complex images when wheels spin. These may be words or colorful patterns. Because these screens are placed in core and do not use friction to reduce electricity, there is no additional rolling resistance. Furthermore, it is harder to damage the LED insert than lights covered by urethane.
See you in the evening!
All those who know a feeling of spending evenings or even nights skating with friends also know they such memories are priceless. Throw a set of glowing wheels in and you can be sure these moments will be even more fun.
