Review: UniqueFire HD-016 dual beam Bicycle headlight

Nice review with great info and pics. Thank you :)

Thanks. Here are some new pictures.

The driver:

Internals with pill and reflectors:

TIR lenses does not fit well enough:

Tried to mod with some spare narrow OP reflector and hairsprayed wide reflector:

Did not help much with ringy beam.

But a lot of XM-L(2) leds with some reflectors have ringy beam, anyway.

Thanks for the review! Seems like deja vu! I might be interested in the group buy, though I wish it was available as a head unit only.

-Garry

Well, yes, more dedicated . Will see how will go about groupbuy. I know the head only would be better, but then yet, for the price you get nice rubber coated battery pack as a bonus.

I’d love to see something like this, with an on-off switch in the light itself, and a remote switch to swap modes between hi and lo beams, close to my thumb. It should have a jumper or group modes to select whether you want to use both beams in hi mode, or just hi beam. that would be my perfect bike light.
switching between all modes in this light when you approach upcoming traffic is a deal breaker. just hi and lo please

Wait - are you saying we can open up the battery pack/case and put our own cells in, like the Pannova case?

-Garry

Better if could get without batteries, but include wire and case

The internals look very similar to that of a SolarStorm X2. I may have more bike lights than we have bikes at home but yes I would also be interested in a group buy. :bigsmile:

It seem like a nice bike light…but not quite sure about pulling the trigger yet…maybe GB on this light to about $25 then I might take the bait ( I really hate buying from them though, their handling & shipping is too slow for me :expressionless: )

No, unfortunately not. You can put in shrink wraped 2S2P pack - the one you tipicaly get with cheapo lights. The only problem is plug connector which does not pass the wire hole. This means you have to push wire trough the hole first and connect (solder) it to the pack. At last you put the pack in the rubber coat. Not the easiest thing to do, but it's doable with not much hassle.

I've borrowed picture from the other site. You can see the "window" at the bottom side:

You must be spoiled somewhat . Shipping within 3 weeks is bingo for me. Mostly it takes about 4 weeks . Anyway we have to see what (if) they have to offer.

So what is the OD of the lens?

hmm…dual buck circuits? Interesting

appears those R150’s are the current sense resistors…lowering the resistance there might kick the power up…but it appears the “pills” are woefully inadequate for decent thermal management if you were to crank the power up

Still a good review…thanks for the hard work!

I think OD of the reflectors is about 21.5mm, but will measure exactly later at the evening. The TIR lenses I was trying to fit are 21mm, but the main problem is height. They are either to tall (in place of wide reflector) or to shallow (in place of narrow reflector). Last one could be elevated with some washers. In the place of wide reflector you would need to grind the lips where pill resides and make new very tight (press fit) pill. Maybe there is another solution, but I would have to inspect internals again.

EDIT: I've measured 21.45mm for the reflectors OD.

Yes you are right. R150 are sense resistors and LEDA chips has probaly same feedback voltage as with other drivers I've seen. By guys at DX forum the feedback voltage is 0.25V which in turns means 0.25/0.15 = 1.66A to the leds. Replacing sense resitors with R120 or R100 would give you about 2.08A and 2.5A, respectively. Maybe little less with some efficiency loss.

Adding thermal compound is mandatory and I would dare to use R120 for sense resistors.

Any update on a Group Buy on this light?

EDIT - 5,000th post!

-Garry

Congratulations Garry!

Congrat Garry.

I don't see much interest here for the GB. Do you have any idea where else we should try with it? Not that I earn anything, just want to help.

I think this light is more suitabe for commuters than for MTB-ers. What do you think?

Nope. Guess you're not getting much interest over at MTBR either? About an hour ago I passed up an opportunity to nab one for about $28 on an Ebay Auction (assuming the winning $27 bid didn't jump above mine). I decided to let it go (and I bought another cheap bike light to test/review :) ).

-Garry

Not sure. I don't ride enough to say. I like the idea of it for trail riding though. I think I'd prefer it be "Low (wide flood)", Low & High (flood and throw), back to "Low", press-n-hold for off. Then press-n-hold from off to get to strobe. I don't see needing "High (throw only)" without having the "Low" flood on too.

I wonder if Gearbest would provide a "coupon code" for a discount just to get their name out there for MTBR users (I never see Gearbest listed at MTBR, so I don't think users over there are familiar with them).

-Garry