The big LIGHTS thread 2011-2014

adrenalinemunki

supersonic wrote:

You can nearly get that... would just have to frost the lens, as above.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CREE-XML-XM-L ... 20c5013dc9

Anyone know how this would compare to the MagicShine 808E since its £20 less? Exactly the same no doubt?

Ouija

adrenalinemunki wrote:

supersonic wrote:

You can nearly get that... would just have to frost the lens, as above.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CREE-XML-XM-L ... 20c5013dc9

Anyone know how this would compare to the MagicShine 808E since its £20 less? Exactly the same no doubt?

The MagicShine comes with a better battery, more modes (including a medium mode) whereas the copy only has bright and very dim (forcing you to run it on bright all the time and quickly drain the battery). It also has a better four stage indicator on the tail cap compared to the copies two (Green = good, Red = bad). a proper orange peeled reflector compared to the smooth of the copy (frosting the reflector with spray doesn't quite give the same effect as the larger bumps of a proper Orange peel design). The bar clamp has rubber on the bottom which gives it much better grip on the bars. The copy will have smooth hard plastic which doesn't grip very well at all and can cause the light to shimmy it's way forwards over bumps until it's pointing at the floor and probably requires you to go out and purchase a better mount (such as the hope one for £8). The charger for the MagicShine is a proper British plugged affair where as the copy uses an adaptor that isn't grounded and thus has more chance of going up in a puff of smoke.

Personally though, if i was going to go as much as spending £50 on single XML head unit i'd just get one of these
(already have 2 and another 4 of the MagicShine copies)

as the beam patterns better, the high mode is brighter (the medium mode being more like the MagicShine & copies high mode), the cables the same thickness as brake cable (so all the brake cable frame management doohickies will work with this), the batteries sealed in waterproof rubber and comes with a better frame bag. Just haven't seen any being sold in the UK lately.

diy

Has anyone AMP tested one of these:
http://www.lightmalls.com/ultrafire-501 ... ht-1-18650

I need some drop ins for a project I am doing and its cheaper to buy the above. But I don't want it with a 1AMP current otherwise I will go for the variable voltage version instead.

Any test results for the above its says 3A. Ideally I'd like current by voltage on low, med high, but current alone will do.

thanks

kevinharley

In answer to my own question ... hows about this?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CREE-XML-XM-L ... 416ce8880b

Has orange peel reflector, under £30, located in Manchester ... looks to tick the boxes reasonably well, unless I'm missing something?

Ths body looks like it hasn't got as many cooling fins / vents as some of the others ... and I did wonder whether the phrase "The light can last 3-3.5 hours after full charge" was a bit imprecise, ie is that on full (doubtful) or on medium / low setting?

Can anyone with a better electronic / technical knowldge than me see any pitfalls in the specifications?

Ouija

kevinharley wrote:

In answer to my own question ... hows about this?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CREE-XML-XM-L ... 416ce8880b

Has orange peel reflector, under £30, located in Manchester ... looks to tick the boxes reasonably well, unless I'm missing something?

Ths body looks like it hasn't got as many cooling fins / vents as some of the others ... and I did wonder whether the phrase "The light can last 3-3.5 hours after full charge" was a bit imprecise, ie is that on full (doubtful) or on medium / low setting?

Can anyone with a better electronic / technical knowldge than me see any pitfalls in the specifications?

I have two of those lights with that exact style of body casing (i have six single head lights over all and 18 XML lights in total), one i got from England, the other i ordered from China. Pretty much all of the comments i made in my post above apply to that light with two exceptions.... Both came with smooth reflectors despite showing orange peel reflectors in the pic and both had defective tail light switches (the red "drained" light remains constantly on, along side the green charged light, even when the batteries fully charged).

Email the seller and check that the package really does come with orange peel reflector (that way you have grounds for a return if it turns out not to be the case) Also, nobody makes orange peel reflectors for that particular style of light (screw in) where as they do for the slightly more common one with the pointed "strike bezel" (drop in), so it's worth checking first.

You can however, simply buy a NukeProof STANDARD front filter for them instead and file of the lugs to get it to work with the light (the Nukeproof narrow filter has no effect whatsoever and the wide filter diffuses waaaaaay too much, in case your tempted to get them).

But, by the time you've spent £7 on a filter and another £7 on a hope handlebar mount your getting close to the same price as a Magicshine.

Neal_

I've just finished having a fiddle with some window privacy film on my light lenses and the results are surprisingly good. I've used DC Fix (Milky) sold at B&Q for £7 a roll (67.5cm x 2m) so I've got quite a lot left over some enterprising git in America is selling A5 size sheets of it for a few quid! It's easy enough to apply and remove if you don't like it, just cut a piece off and peel off the backing, wet the lens surface slightly, press it on to remove all the bubbles then cut round the edge with stanley knife. Also I've stuck it to the inside surface of the lens to keep it clean.

It really spreads out the hot spot to make the beam more floody and smoother which is what you want for mountain biking. All below photos taken on an iphone so not scientific...





3*T6 light on low mode (1 LED) without diffuser lens


3*T6 light on low mode (1 LED) with diffuser lens



.......................................................................................................................................

Ouija wrote:

Personally though, if i was going to go as much as spending £50 on single XML head unit i'd just get one of these
(already have 2 and another 4 of the MagicShine copies)
... Just haven't seen any being sold in the UK lately.

MTB Batteries sell it for £89 http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/mountain-bike-lights/ It is the Sanguan SG-N1000 http://szsanguan.manufacturer.globalsou ... -Light.htm and http://www.szsanguan.com/indexX.asp?ID=22 from the same manufacturer that make the SG-T2200 aka "The Luminator" http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/mountain- ... lumenator/

adrenalinemunki

Very imformative posts there Ouija, many thanks!

(one thing though, unless you want to spend nearer to £75 it won't be a British plug, DX have them for £50 but with the US power...)

adrenalinemunki

Heres something of interest folks, I got a good friend of mine who works at Thorlux to put one of my 501b XM-L T6 torches in their lightsphere... They are forwarding me the full technical diagnostic but as lighting engineers they were a bit less than impressed

• On full (and to me they look bright as hell) they only hit the mid 100s in lumens
• in 25° ambient temperature, the casing got dangerously hot, now this is lessened somewhat bu the temperature we ride at and the flow of the wind but nevertheless, it is obviously not an LED meant for the case.
• after running for 12 minutes on high in the light sphere, the black plastic thing that sits above the LED had melted and the whole thing started to smell.
• at the end of the 12 minute run, not only had the temperature got to a dangerous level, but the lumens output had reduced by 60 and had dropped to double figures.

Wondering if this was a one off and a "bad egg"? well we then ran my second torch, and it was only slightly better, hitting 172 lumens at peak. Same heat problems.

So there we have it, I'll post the report on here once they email me but all in all, this is shoddy, shoddy technology... but what can we expect for £10 right?

Fact is, regardless of figures, they are bright enough to bike with, my concern would be the safety side... anything that overheats like that could pop a small hole in my head.

Would be very interesting to stick some of the expensive lights in the sphere see how they hold up...

leaflite

adrenalinemunki wrote:

Heres something of interest folks, I got a good friend of mine who works at Thorlux to put one of my 501b XM-L T6 torches in their lightsphere... They are forwarding me the full technical diagnostic but as lighting engineers they were a bit less than impressed

• On full (and to me they look bright as hell) they only hit the mid 100s in lumens
• in 25° ambient temperature, the casing got dangerously hot, now this is lessened somewhat bu the temperature we ride at and the flow of the wind but nevertheless, it is obviously not an LED meant for the case.
• after running for 12 minutes on high in the light sphere, the black plastic thing that sits above the LED had melted and the whole thing started to smell.
• at the end of the 12 minute run, not only had the temperature got to a dangerous level, but the lumens output had reduced by 60 and had dropped to double figures.

Wondering if this was a one off and a "bad egg"? well we then ran my second torch, and it was only slightly better, hitting 172 lumens at peak. Same heat problems.

So there we have it, I'll post the report on here once they email me but all in all, this is shoddy, shoddy technology... but what can we expect for £10 right?

Fact is, regardless of figures, they are bright enough to bike with, my concern would be the safety side... anything that overheats like that could pop a small hole in my head.

Would be very interesting to stick some of the expensive lights in the sphere see how they hold up...

Im very suprised by that. If you look at torchy's website, his beamshots show the cheaper lights completely blowing the hope and similar lights out of the water

adrenalinemunki

Yeah, I do see what I have as "a bloody bright torch" but the fact is, we must have a very distorted view of what 1000 or even 100 lumens looks like.

When I handed them over and said "they're supposed to be 1000 lumens each", he said "**** off"

bartimaeus

Interesting. My 501b XML torches do not get very hot at all - but my 501b XPG does... and that's just using them round the house. All have foil round the drop-in to try to improve thermal conductivity. I might try running one on full indoors, just to see how long it lasts and how hot it gets.

I have no way of measuring lumens, but the XML is a decent brightness on medium - which is how I use mine most of the time. I'm absolutely certain that they are not as bright as some of the claims... but at least my XMLs claim only 510 lumens which is theoretically what they could deliver at about 1.2 amps, and if I measured it right that's about what the driver will give them.

I did see a video on how to make your own 'integrating sphere' using paper mache and a cheap lux meter... might be a bit of fun.

supersonic

adrenalinemunki wrote:

Heres something of interest folks, I got a good friend of mine who works at Thorlux to put one of my 501b XM-L T6 torches in their lightsphere... They are forwarding me the full technical diagnostic but as lighting engineers they were a bit less than impressed

• On full (and to me they look bright as hell) they only hit the mid 100s in lumens
• in 25° ambient temperature, the casing got dangerously hot, now this is lessened somewhat bu the temperature we ride at and the flow of the wind but nevertheless, it is obviously not an LED meant for the case.
• after running for 12 minutes on high in the light sphere, the black plastic thing that sits above the LED had melted and the whole thing started to smell.
• at the end of the 12 minute run, not only had the temperature got to a dangerous level, but the lumens output had reduced by 60 and had dropped to double figures.

Wondering if this was a one off and a "bad egg"? well we then ran my second torch, and it was only slightly better, hitting 172 lumens at peak. Same heat problems.

So there we have it, I'll post the report on here once they email me but all in all, this is shoddy, shoddy technology... but what can we expect for £10 right?

Fact is, regardless of figures, they are bright enough to bike with, my concern would be the safety side... anything that overheats like that could pop a small hole in my head.

Would be very interesting to stick some of the expensive lights in the sphere see how they hold up...

His light sphere is defective. I have other tests on these torches, hit over 800 lumens when driven at 3 amps.

Or your torch is properly bad!

diy

Yep I agree, I was out with some others a couple of nights ago.
I ran 1 XPG on the lid (couldn't find my other XM-L)
and 3 XM-L t6 on the bars.
2 are rated 1.8A at 3.7v (so about 2.1A at 4.2) my own tests
1 is rated 2.4A at 3.7v (about 2.8A at 4.2v)it is only slightly brighter to the naked eye) again my own test

I ran on medium/off for the XM-Ls and high/Med for the XPG - my XPG is 1A med 1.3A high at 3.7v

So I'd say about 1600-2000 Lumen ish

One rider was running Exposure Joystick and toro. These are 350 and 1000 lumen according to Exposure, they were totally swamped by my 4 lights, which is what I would expect given 4 XPGs against 3XM-L and 1 XPG. Certainly more than 2-300 lumen difference.

There were a couple of guys with the 3 XPG magic shines and XRE, head units and again I had to switch my lights down just to avoid annoying them. The 3-XPG magic shine were good, but they chewed through the cells.

I had better spread, better runtime and more control. I've never had a problem with heat, but I would say that the head does get hot which is good, since this reduced heat in the unit.

Obviously 501 is just a generic name and I have never seen any two alike, but I reckon this one is a duffer. Without Amp readings the test is rather pointless I am afraid.

Ouija

Neal_ wrote:

I've just finished having a fiddle with some window privacy film on my light lenses and the results are surprisingly good. I've used DC Fix (Milky) sold at B&Q for £7 a roll (67.5cm x 2m) so I've got quite a lot left over some enterprising git in America is selling A5 size sheets of it for a few quid! It's easy enough to apply and remove if you don't like it, just cut a piece off and peel off the backing, wet the lens surface slightly, press it on to remove all the bubbles then cut round the edge with stanley knife. Also I've stuck it to the inside surface of the lens to keep it clean.

It really spreads out the hot spot to make the beam more floody and smoother which is what you want for mountain biking. All below photos taken on an iphone so not scientific...

Like those. Tried the frosted spray the other day but it gives a brushed aluminium effect which softens out the beam pattern too much until there's practically no spot at all. Think i'll pop down to B&Q and give the tape a try.

Neal_ wrote:

....................................................................................................................................

MTB Batteries sell it for £89 http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/mountain-bike-lights/ It is the Sanguan SG-N1000 http://szsanguan.manufacturer.globalsou ... -Light.htm and http://www.szsanguan.com/indexX.asp?ID=22 from the same manufacturer that make the SG-T2200 aka "The Luminator" http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/mountain- ... lumenator/

Yeah, knew they were Sangaun SG-N1000's (it's written on them). Luckily for me, my two sets came with the british charger and only cost £19 each.

Ouija

Bartimaeus wrote:

Interesting. My 501b XML torches do not get very hot at all - but my 501b XPG does... and that's just using them round the house. All have foil round the drop-in to try to improve thermal conductivity. I might try running one on full indoors, just to see how long it lasts and how hot it gets.

.

My 502's get quite hot to the touch after a couple of minutes if you run them indoors with no air flow (but why would you want to). My Trustfire A8, on the other hand, remains cool as a cucumber, irrespective of setting.

Ouija

diy wrote:

Obviously 501 is just a generic name and I have never seen any two alike, but I reckon this one is a duffer. Without Amp readings the test is rather pointless I am afraid.

Read recently that the "UltraFire" name is owned by no one, so any manufacturer can, and does, use it. This explains the wide range of quality of Ultrafire lights, batteries and chargers as they could be cheap tat made by anyone or higher quality ones made by a completely different company.

diy

Ouija wrote:

diy wrote:

Obviously 501 is just a generic name and I have never seen any two alike, but I reckon this one is a duffer. Without Amp readings the test is rather pointless I am afraid.

Read recently that the "UltraFire" name is owned by no one, so any manufacturer can, and does, use it. This explains the wide range of quality of Ultrafire lights, batteries and chargers as they could be cheap tat made by anyone or higher quality ones made by a completely different company.

It is owned by BIN ZHAO based in china.

itguy2

Have received my first ever 501b today, an XML t6 - it draws just over 1amp on full, so should give a decent battery life.

It's got an OP reflector and seems damn bright to me - I'm very impressed. Mounted it on the bars and want for a quick blast, wow.

Just ordered another just now, a U2 claiming a 3a draw, so should compliment my existing one nicely.

Amazing value for money

itguy2

Hi everyone

Has anyone got any photos of how to improve the heat sinking using aluminium foil on the 501b torches?

Also, when I went out for my first proper ride yesterday, I used a reclaimed laptop battery (don't know what make/capacity but was fully charged on my xtar) and after about 30 mins in wasn't looking very bright (although I went out at dusk so not sure if this was always dim). Swapped it for a Panasonic 2800mah battery and was noticeably brighter. Is it typical that 18650 batteries will dim the led as they start to go flat or is that particular reclaimed battery just rubbish??

Just new to the 501b / XML t6 so not sure how they typically discharge

Cheers

Ouija

The reclaimed battery is probably just rubbish. Li-Ion batteries start to age from the moment of manufacture (weather you use them or not) and have an average three year life span. As they age they store less and less of a charge. Which is slightly different to the way Ni-MH and Ni-Cd batteries work, apparently.

diy

Itguy, I don't think you need to worry about heat sinking driving at 1A its not going to get massively hot. If you do its just a case of putting foil around the drop in.

Where did you buy it from? btw

Dimming can sometimes be caused by a loose connection affecting a contact. make sure everything is tight. Check the voltage of the cell.

Neal_

itguy2 wrote:

Hi everyone

Has anyone got any photos of how to improve the heat sinking using aluminium foil on the 501b torches?

Also, when I went out for my first proper ride yesterday, I used a reclaimed laptop battery (don't know what make/capacity but was fully charged on my xtar) and after about 30 mins in wasn't looking very bright (although I went out at dusk so not sure if this was always dim). Swapped it for a Panasonic 2800mah battery and was noticeably brighter. Is it typical that 18650 batteries will dim the led as they start to go flat or is that particular reclaimed battery just rubbish??

Just new to the 501b / XML t6 so not sure how they typically discharge

Cheers

Here you go

itguy2

Thanks everyone - I bought my 501b from kernow trading on eBay, specifically because I wanted an
OP lens and shipping within the uk.

I know I overpaid, but I got it quick which is what I wanted. As I've said in a previous post, my next 501b is on the way from lt-box.com as I'm not in so much of a hurry!

george2k

hi,

I have made a few headlights before but I now just buy them it's a lot easier, a friend of mine brought some new lupines for £150 from fudgescyclestore they must be loosing money doing it?

itguy2

I've been doing a discharge test using a known good Samsung 2800mah 18650 in my 1.4amp 501b XML t6 this afternoon (yes, bored and it's raining buckets!).

I've noticed the following and wondered if its normal behaviour of the battery is actually weak?

When fully charged, battery is 4.2v and torch runs at 1.4amps on full, and does look very bright.

After 15 mins on full, torch got hot to touch (expected, have done the foil thing) and battery is at 3.9v, giving 1.1amps on full.

After 60 mins on full, battery is at 3.5v and giving 0.8amps on full

After 1hr 15 mins on full, battery is at 3.25v, 0.35amps (torch a lot cooler, as expected!)

Obviously the light output is going down all the time as the amps drop.

So, I thought the 18650 batteries were supposed to be fairly static in terms of output during their discharge?

Just wondering if this is the same as everyone else (ie torch gets gradually dimmer over the discharge in line with amps output) or if my battery is just a bit knackered!

Thanks

supersonic

Depends on the driver (or lack of one) in the torch too. But it doesn't sound good either way.

itguy2

Ahh, I see, so it could be the driver asking for less amps as the voltage drops...

I thought that an XML t6 without a driver would draw over 3amps, so I presume that it must have a driver, maybe just one that's a bit rubbish!'

supersonic

I have seen some come without drivers, but they use resistors to control current.

Ouija

Easiest way to tell is to point it at the rotating spokes of a wheel or a fan. If it's directly connected to the battery you shouldn't notice anything. If it's been driven by a digitally regulated driver you should see a strange 'strobe' effect (a bit like the way spokes on carts/chariots etc on television can appear to be rotating backwards). This is because the driver uses pulse width modulation (very fast strobing at a fixed voltage) to achieve the level of brightness of the light (spacing the pulses further apart to reduce the brightness and shortening them to increase brightness) as opposed to simply varying the voltage (analogue). If it's digitally controlled pulses (PWM) you can detect the pulsed nature of the device via the rotating spoke/fan blades trick. If it's analogue, the light will simply drop in brightness in parallel with the draining of the battery ( a PWM design would more often as not stay at a constant brightness and then drop to a different mode (space the pulses further apart) when the voltage got too low).

Oh! And just to confuse things further, some drivers only use PWM on the lower modes but use direct drive on the brightest mode.

Probably talking out my arse here, but that's always been my understanding of it (give it a try).

itguy2

Interesting stuff - will try tomorrow.

I've ordered a couple of new drivers (a 2.8amp and a 3.0amp) from china so I'll give these a try when i get them eventually.

It certainly does sound like mine is resistor driven rather than pwm, although it is a 5 mode with memory which from what I understand is part of an IC circuit board. But maybe it's got that but still has resistors rather than PWM hardware. Who knows!!