Bargain Ebay bike lights

[Scougar]

After a lot of wiring/soldering and tinkering I have managed to make my light less functional that before lol. I've broken the button on the back, so I can't switch modes unless I faff with the power lead to force it to change mode. I will need a new 'two way' button, rather than the original "3-way" button that I had before it seems. I'm not really sure I've actually gained anything worthwhile by adding the expensive constant current driver in either lol. But I will see later when I fix some things.

I did change the reflector around with another one, and it has a better pattern without the dead spot in the middle it hard before. Will update when sorted.

 

[BobCatMax]

looking forward to all these new pics. Reading your progress is fascinating Scougar

 

[Scougar]

Genuinely just tinkering with the stuff really lol. I'm a noob with electronics even though I did it at school. Was originally using the body to get the 'earth' connection, but I'm now temporarily directly wiring it without a switch at present. I definately need to figure out this swtich business. My soldering is a mess. (mainly from trying to hold bits of wire together in mid air, whilst also holding a soldering iron and solder lol.

I also learnt that leaving your soldering iron turned on with solder on it eat's the 'tip' on the iron away. Hmm.. that'll be that the wet sponge would be for then! (Which I don't have as it's a borrowed iron opps!).

All the bits of wire are very messy now as well, really looking terrible where before it looked relatively neat. I will have to rewire with fresh stuff I think.

 

[Scougar]

Been thinking about this.

These lights are great, but.. don't waste your time modifying as much as I've been doing. Changing the LED to an XR-E R2 significantly improves the brightness of the light and IS worth doing if you are prepared to accept the reduced run-time.

What isn't worth doing is buying a different driver for it. It's much more hassle than it's worth and in reality I was more than happy with the light with just it running an XR-E R2, and an external power source

If it's gonna be used as a torch for bar mounting, I still think you might be able to squeeze in an 18650 battery to get about 2.5 times the run-time and that might be worth doing.

What it really comes down to is this: If you already have DECENT AAA rechargeables then these make sense, as decent 18650's are expensive and you still need to buy the charger etc. If you already have 18650's and charger then don't get these lights, as buying something else (brighter) will work out financially better.

IMHO, don't get these lights for the flashing function, you can get cheaper and better flashing unit's that last longer (as I've linked to in a previous post).

Hope this doesn't sound pessimistic, it isn't meant to lol. I really like these torches

EDIT: I wired up the 4x AA Battery pack tonight as well. Seems to be the same brightness as the XP4001 battery pack even though I have introduced about 1.3V more. Guess the constant current driver is doing it's thing, or I was already at the limit of the XR-E. One thing I did notice is that different lenses really change the spread.

 

[Scougar]

Ok.. been a while, but I've been faffing again.

I've removed the button mechanism entirely and put the power feed in through this opening, rather than through the bottom. I've used the hole in the bottom to mount a temporary switch. This switch is one I nicked off a non-working graphics card for it's variable speed fan, so in it's two position's it is "ON ON" rather than ON OFF. This mean's in the mode that the light isn't "ON" (no light), the cable starts to heat up. I'll rectify this later, as I'm still just playing around with stuff.

I do wish at this moment in time that I should not have bothered getting the expensive 'driver' circuitry, and just stuck with the basic circuit that's included in the original tail cap (with the button). I can't currently get it to do anything other than switch between high and low modes which is really annoying. I'm probably missing something stupidly obvious in my wiring.

Anyway.. here is what I have at the moment:

 

[legrandefromage]

Heh heh

Lets resurrect this monster again. Tried this fella out tonight and at the peaks meet.

Oh my giddy aunt! Bloody nuts!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160636012012? ... 580wt_1037

 

[toons]

I was out riding tonight and a couple of people had these bad boys

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/t6-ass...te-led-bike-light-with-battery-pack-set-82508

Bloody amazing for the price

 

[BobCatMax]

Heh heh

Lets resurrect this monster again. Tried this fella out tonight and at the peaks meet.

Oh my giddy aunt! Bloody nuts!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160636012012? ... 580wt_1037

they look good for the price LGF. What sort of run time do you get? and is that clamp round the unit secure?..it looks a bit iffy :?

I've got 2 sets of the fist ones you discovered and they're great, but a bit annoying to have 3 AAA's powering them.

 

[BerthaPog]

Heh heh

Lets resurrect this monster again. Tried this fella out tonight and at the peaks meet.

Oh my giddy aunt! Bloody nuts!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160636012012? ... 580wt_1037

they look good for the price LGF. What sort of run time do you get? and is that clamp round the unit secure?..it looks a bit iffy :?

I've got 2 sets of the fist ones you discovered and they're great, but a bit annoying to have 3 AAA's powering them.

For the original lights in the thread (aunt's remain calm and collected at all illumination levels), I use one of these doohickeys for a helmet mount: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:en#ht_5254wt_907.

 

[legrandefromage]

Heh heh

Lets resurrect this monster again. Tried this fella out tonight and at the peaks meet.

Oh my giddy aunt! Bloody nuts!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160636012012? ... 580wt_1037

they look good for the price LGF. What sort of run time do you get? and is that clamp round the unit secure?..it looks a bit iffy :?

I've got 2 sets of the fist ones you discovered and they're great, but a bit annoying to have 3 AAA's powering them.

I use the clamp that came with the original lights