The big LIGHTS thread 2011-2014

allthegearnoidea

Just back in from a quick darky blast,
Was suprised by the difference in them both for beams, you could happily ride on the light only but the torch a bit vague for solo light use,may get another light for the lid too and use the torch as a back up, Never have too much light hey! :-D

Ouija

allthegearnoidea wrote:

Never have too much light hey! :-D

That's why i have 16 of them.......... (and that's just XML T6's)

allthegearnoidea

Ouija wrote:

allthegearnoidea wrote:

Never have too much light hey! :-D

That's why i have 16 of them.......... (and that's just XML T6's)

You Are the CRC winter advert then hey! ;-)

Ouija

Well i do spent four to six hours most nights up on the moors or in Dalby and surrounding forests, so tend to have a lot of lights to choose from for specific types of rides and weather conditions.

For off road and even unlit country lane riding at this time of year you need to go with insane amounts of Lumen and quite a lot of flood (especially when the mist and fog set in), due to the fact that everything your pointing them at is dark (wet roads, black mud and bark) and doesn't throw as much light back. So separate head/battery combos with OP reflectors and 16 cell battery packs tend to be order of the day. There's also less people about so you can really go to town with lights that light up most of the countryside.

For summer use, especially road use, there's less of a need for vast amounts of Lumen as the roads tend to be dry and a greyish colour, which throws up much more light, not to mention the foliage on the trees tends to send a lot of light back your way. Consequently, fewer lumens with a more focused beam strategy can work to your advantage, less need for large battery packs so 4.2v torches tend to get brought out more. Also reduces blinding oncoming pedestrians/motorists as there tends to be more of them about. Even off road tends to require less light as the mud hardens and compacts into a light brown colour, which throws back more light.

diy

For me it depends how long I am riding for. If its less than 3-4 hours I go spot on the lid and more floody on the bars. With XM-L I do this entirely by adjusting the position (4 lights 2 on lid 2 on bars) For greater than 4 hours I want less spot on the lid as it drives you mad looking in to a flood lit area all the time. But at the same time I will want less weight on the lid, so I go single light on the lid and 2-4 lights on the bars.

I only up the light on the bars to increase run time by switching to low or medium. I generally find 3 on the bars and one on the lid ideal for rides of 4 hours.

allthegearnoidea

That's Great DIy, thanks matey!
Tempted for another of both just to be greedy! Haha!

diy

There is also a big advantage in having some spacing between the lights as it can reduce shadowing. Even just 6 inches can make a big difference.

Ouija

diy wrote:

There is also a big advantage in having some spacing between the lights as it can reduce shadowing. Even just 6 inches can make a big difference.

+1

I used to use a twin head Inton for a lot of off road use (still a good light, by the way) but prefer to have separates on either side of the stem as you can also angle them away from each other if you want to fill out more of the countryside or towards each other if you want more of a spot. Also having two sets of controls and modes for each light allows for more choice and variation of light. It's one of the reasons i wouldn't buy one of those 3 or 4 XML's in a single head unit that seem quite so popular at the moment (not to mention the excess heat problem they have). There's just no versatility in them.

Currently have two of these mounted on my bar



as mine are noticeably brighter in their brightest mode than the Magicshines and their clones (with middle mode being closer to the max of the clones). Must be running at a higher ampage setting, which is why i have them hooked up to a 12/16 cell pack. I see some of these are now being sold with a XML-U2 in them. Almost tempted to upgrade (note to self...... STOP BUYING MORE LIGHTS).

bigdrew1

Ouija wrote:

bigdrew1 wrote:

(There is no indicator on the charger)

Wouldn't trust that. Definitely need to think about getting a charger with over charge protection and an indicator to show when it's charged. While the battery packs protection circuit could be relied on to sever connections with the charger when the batteries are full i'd still want to know when that occurred, rather than just guessing at weather it's charged or not.

Can buy alternate chargers for Magicshine lights on ebay for a tenner or get the cheap ones from China for a fiver.

Thanks for the reply. I'm guessing that this one will be fine?
http://www.magicshine.co.uk/accessories ... 012uk.html

Are the cells in these packs pretty rubbish or are people using them without any grief once they have a decent charger?

Would I be better using something where I can charge them individually and make sure decent 18650's are used! Maybe use something like this?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-x-2S2P-7-4V ... 23267092d9

Ouija

bigdrew1 wrote:

Ouija wrote:

bigdrew1 wrote:

(There is no indicator on the charger)

Wouldn't trust that. Definitely need to think about getting a charger with over charge protection and an indicator to show when it's charged. While the battery packs protection circuit could be relied on to sever connections with the charger when the batteries are full i'd still want to know when that occurred, rather than just guessing at weather it's charged or not.

Can buy alternate chargers for Magicshine lights on ebay for a tenner or get the cheap ones from China for a fiver.

Thanks for the reply. I'm guessing that this one will be fine?
http://www.magicshine.co.uk/accessories ... 012uk.html

Are the cells in these packs pretty rubbish or are people using them without any grief once they have a decent charger?

Would I be better using something where I can charge them individually and make sure decent 18650's are used! Maybe use something like this?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-x-2S2P-7-4V ... 23267092d9

Certainly haven't had any problems with the battery packs that came with mine (touch wood), but it's hard to tell what's in them as they are sealed in rubber.

I wouldn't buy those 18650 battery holders. I have and the PCM circuit is flakey as all hell. Had two die on me and the others seem to get seriously screwy sometimes with perfectly ok batteries. Had to bypass them eventually (put the red and black wires on the B+ and B- points next to the protections P+ and P- points instead). They also wont take a protected battery either as they are too long for the holder.

bigdrew1

Cheers, I'll just pick up a new charger for the pack I have then.

Ouija

If you really want to make your own battery packs you'd be better off going with something like this.



Buy two and strap em back to back and splice the red wires together and the black wires together and solder to a 5.5mm outer, 2.1mm inner DC plug. Simpler and the springs will allow for longer protected batteries by simply compressing more, unlike the other one you posted.

diy

Really you want to be using a protection circuit for a 4 cell 2 serial config. I'd probably risk it myself as long as you are not charging them that way. If it was me I'd probably go for a 6 cell option.

bartimaeus

I went out last night to try out me new XML-U3 which I bought as an 'upgrade' to my P7 SSC. Usually I run with two 500 lumen XML-T6 (one bar + on lid) both on MED and then use my P7 on FULL for technical sections... so I was intending to use this new torch on FULL when needed... but it's pretty bright on MED. I'm tempted to use it as a main light.

It seems to run at 2.45 amps FULL and 0.95 amps MED - where my T6s run at 1.45 and 0.5 amps. I may have to get another one of these as it was less than £14 with shipping... but I might try one of the 501b U3s though it would be good to know the settings for High/Medium first.

Beam shots: my garden - patio furniture at 25m and end hedge at 35m: 4secs @ F4 100 asa wb=daylight. I did do some shots on the trail last night, but they aren't great so I'll redo them - and this time with the 'right' settings and a better bit of trail with some range markers.

MEDIUM


FULL

bamba

Damm you, thought i was happy with my 502b t6's, those u3's look tempting, do you have any t6 beem shots ?

bartimaeus

Same place, same settings... I have these XML T6s

XML-T6 501b Medium

XML-T6 501b High

diy

Too close to call.. you are gonna have to run them again with cells at different voltages to get closer to similar amps. The beam/throw is practically identical between the two.

bartimaeus

By far the biggest difference is the driver: 2.45 / 0.95 amps vs 1.45 / 0.50 (or whatever it was exactly... I've lost my bit of paper, but this was measured with fresh cells at 4.12v)... the U3 is much brighter but will not last as long.

Ouija

Bartimaeus wrote:

By far the biggest difference is the driver: 2.45 / 0.95 amps vs 1.45 / 0.50 (or whatever it was exactly... I've lost my bit of paper, but this was measured with fresh cells at 4.12v)... the U3 is much brighter but will not last as long.

Did you know the 501 was only 1.45a when you bought it? Don't think i would of purchased them if i had (my 502's seem to to be closer to your pic of the U3 than 501).

As for battery comsumption, it's really easy to power 501's and 502's from external battery packs if your capable of doing a simple bit of soldering and sawing of wood (essentially cutting a bit of dowling rod to length to make a dummy battery and snipping the end of a remote pressure switch and wiring it to a DC jack instead).

bamba

think he means test the u3 with a lower battery voltage in order to acheive the same current draw as a t6 so like for like can be compaired.

freediver

Discovered possibly the best li-ion charger on DX

Hi guys.

Three years ago, I read the original lights thread and at the time the best light was the MTE SF-15 P7 d bin. This had given me excellent service but unfortunately it was stolen. I read this latest thread to see what the best light is now.

I searched for xm-l in DX but one thing that I did discover in 2010 and is still valid in 2013 is that the search query in Dealextreme misses many items out. Therefore I had a look through all the lights and by chance found the following charger which is fairly new and I don’t think anybody else on the forum has seen it yet.

Universal Intelligent 4-Slot Rechargeable Battery Charger

The online reviews from other sources were all excellent so I ordered one. It only took 8 days to come and It arrived yesterday. It is excellent especially when compared to the standard black charger that was recommended in 2010 and is still recommended in 2013.

It has the following features:

It comes in a proper box with proper Instructions
charges 4 batteries simultaneously with a max charge of 750mah ( 50% faster than the 500mah standard charger that is recommended)
the 4 battery slots are monitored and charged independently
automatically identifies Li-ion, Ni-Cd and Ni-MH. (ie it can charge Li-ion, Ni-Cd and Ni-MH at the same time)Hence will charge
18650
26650
22650
17670
18490
17500
17335
16340(RCR123)
14500
10440
AA
AAA
C
Automatically detects battery status and selects the appropriate voltage and charge mode.
Each bay has 3 LEDs which indicate the charge status ie less than 1/3, less than 2/3, less than 3/3 and fully charged.
Automatically stops charging when complete.
Features reverse polarity protection ( ie battery will not explode if put in the wrong way round)
The batteries do not get hot because there are a lot of cooling vents.
It can be charged via the mains AC 100-240 volts or DC 12v (ie from a car cigarette lighter so perfect for camping etc)
The build quality looks perfect.

At the moment everything about it seems perfect. However I will report back if there are any problems.

So even though it is a little more expensive than

Digital Li-Ion 18650 Battery Charger

It actually works out cheaper because it will charge 4 batteries at once so is the equivalent of 2 of the above. It will also charge different sized LI-ion batteries so you don’t have to buy another charger for smaller or larger batteries. It will also charge Ni-Cd and Ni-mh so you don’t have to buy another charger for these as well. It will also work off a car cigarette lighter so you don’t need to buy an invertor to change 12v dc to 230v ac.

bartimaeus

Ouija wrote:

Did you know the 501 was only 1.45a when you bought it?

Yes, sort of... my XML T6 torches claim 510 lumens which I knew when I got them. According to the binning chart that would be somewhere under 1500mA so the 1.45A is not a surprise.

Like diy, I run my T6s on medium most of the time - which is just under 500mA so 200 maybe 200 lumens each - with a brighter full beam light for descending.

diy

bamba wrote:

think he means test the u3 with a lower battery voltage in order to acheive the same current draw as a t6 so like for like can be compaired.

Yes that is it. As the volts drop the current will also until the amps are about the same

tincaman

freediver wrote:

Discovered possibly the best li-ion charger on DX

Hi guys.

Three years ago, I read the original lights thread and at the time the best light was the MTE SF-15 P7 d bin. This had given me excellent service but unfortunately it was stolen. I read this latest thread to see what the best light is now.

I searched for xm-l in DX but one thing that I did discover in 2010 and is still valid in 2013 is that the search query in Dealextreme misses many items out. Therefore I had a look through all the lights and by chance found the following charger which is fairly new and I don’t think anybody else on the forum has seen it yet.

Universal Intelligent 4-Slot Rechargeable Battery Charger

You can get these in the UK too, cost a bit more though

diy

Output current: 375mA x 4 / 750mA x 2 - Not going to be very fast charging. 2.5Ah+ cells - could be looking at charge times in excess of 6 hours.

diy

Bartimaeus wrote:

Ouija wrote:

Did you know the 501 was only 1.45a when you bought it?

Yes, sort of... my XML T6 torches claim 510 lumens which I knew when I got them. According to the binning chart that would be somewhere under 1500mA so the 1.45A is not a surprise.

Like diy, I run my T6s on medium most of the time - which is just under 500mA so 200 maybe 200 lumens each - with a brighter full beam light for descending.

You could probably get away with 2S on those heads. as you will still be under 3A on 8.4v I ran some MC-Es like this for a while at 4.5A, insanely bright. LEDs eventually went blue

freediver

diy wrote:

Output current: 375mA x 4 / 750mA x 2 - Not going to be very fast charging. 2.5Ah+ cells - could be looking at charge times in excess of 6 hours.

Universal Intelligent 4-Slot Rechargeable Battery Charger

If charging two batteries it will take just over 3 hours. It would only take 6 hours if charging 4 batteries at the same time. This is a lot faster than the other one;

Digital Li-Ion 18650 Battery Charger

This is only 500mA x 2 so for charging four 2.5Ah+ cells you are looking at charge times in excess of 10 hours.

bamba

My 502b xml t6's are pullling 2amps on high on a fully charged battery.

diy

freediver wrote:

Digital Li-Ion 18650 Battery Charger

This is only 500mA x 2 so for charging four 2.5Ah+ cells you are looking at charge times in excess of 10 hours.

given the price - you could also buy 2.

Sheppy

One of my battery packs has failed Looking for a long endurance pack, came across 4*26550 pack at lightmalls:
http://www.lightmalls.com/8-4v-10000mah ... bike-light
Wondered if anyone has experience of this? I'm guessing it's not the best quality cells and probably not 10000mah, but it's going to be better than the 4 packs (presumably).

Or perhaps I'm better off with 6*18650:
http://www.bikelightsuk.com/batteries/m ... _P575.html
Which would presumably be much better quality cells. Of course I'm basing this on no evidence, just my gut feeling either way. Wonder if anyone has any experience of either to help me decide :?