Review - Bike Light/Headlamp with 2 XM-L T6 from EachBuyer

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
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NOTE: Mod is located here.

Sami at EachBuyer asked if I would like to review a couple of their products. This headlamp was selected by him for me to review. It includes a battery pack and charger. Here are the package contents (with mouseover):

Initial Impressions:

Very nice. Best beam pattern in a bike light/head lamp I have used to date. Large hotspot, good flood, and wide spill. Hot spot isn't too defined which is a good thing for both biking and headlamp use. Appears to be a Solar Storm X2/FandyFire X2 clone.

Throw calculated to 10kcd when measured at 10 feet. Momentary swith with the following short click mode cycle: Low, Med, High, Off. A long click to go into slow flash mode from any mode.

Pro's:

  • Nice mix of throw and flood. It favors flood which I desire in a headlamp. Has wide spill.
  • Quite bright. The brightest I have in a stock headlamp.
  • Light weight
  • 3 modes (Low, Med, High) with good (but not excellent) separation
  • The light stands off far enough from your head to not feel the heat. It gets hot fast on high.
  • Good thermal path. The heat comes out fast. Since the light is so light weight, it gets too hot to hold after several minutes on high. Later thermal path testing indicates there is a thermal bottleneck somewhere in the light. See Cons.
  • Voltage indicator lights
  • Hidden slow strobe mode (about the speed of a car's hazard flashers)
  • Appears to be water proof if you keep the front plate flat (don't let bend). Water resistant for sure.
  • The driver seem very well regulated (see mod thread).

Con's:

  • Has a thermal path bottleneck. Although the pills are pressed in nicely, my testing indicates that they or the aluminum bases are not pulling out the heat fast enough (Had significant thermal sag, but current remained steady at 2amps/emitter and exterior temp only hit 195F).
  • Battery pack is heavy and awkward. Would be fine for mounting to a bike though.
  • Voltage indicator lights a bit too bright. Not a problem for headlamp, but I would cover for handlebar usage.
  • Charger appears to only charge to 8 volts (Maybe for safety purposes)
  • Possible high parasitic drain as the bright battery voltage Indicator LEDs are always on. Unplug when not in use.
  • Has no thermal protection in my testing.
  • Battery pack (2P2S 18650's) is sub par. Total capacity measured about 2.2 amps and internal resistance measured an average of about 52mR.

I have not evaluated the charger or battery pack. I don't have the expertise or equipment to properly evaluate them. There is a circuit board in the battery pack the Member ledoman stated here that it probably does not perform cell bank balancing.

General Information:

Here it is with some of it's new friends. It looks a little startled by all the attention, but it soon relaxed (mouseover):

Package Contained:
1 x Headlamp with 2 XM-L's (Wired 2S)

1 x Extendable head band

1 x US charger (Input: AC 100V-240V, 50/60Hz, Max350mA, Output: DC 8.4V 1A)

2 x Rubber band (One large and one smaller size)

1 x battery (2S2P 18650) and battery holster

Current was as follows:

Low .41 - - .42 amps

Med 1.04 - 1.05 amps

High 2.07 - 2.08 amps

The battery pack has a circuit board in it. It connects to the Positive, Negative, and connection between the 2S banks. It also feeds the output wires (approximately 22 or 20 gauge). I don't know it's purpose.

The cells are not labeled and are wrapped in a baby blue wrappers. They take full voltage charges. Internal resistance and capacity tested as follows, respectively:

Cell A = 54mR, Cell B = 52mR, Cell C = 51mR, Cell D = 51mR

Cell A = 1,122mA, Cell B = 1,079mA, Cell C = 1,073mA, Cell D = 1,131mA

Connected DMM between emitters and the driver and put a lux meter in front of the light and ran on high for 10 minutes. Light on it's back on a a paper towel and no air circulation. Current ran dead solid at 2.07 to 2.08 amps the whole time. Lux dropped significantly. Light seemed to stabilize at 195 degree Fahrenheit. This means that there may be a thermal bottle neck within the light. Probably the relatively thin pill's contact with the sides of the casing.

Tear down Shots:

The "pills" appear to be pressed in fairly tight. That's a good thing. There are some versions of this light out there with no pills. Just the emitter bases resting on the casing's internal ledge.

LED leads are 24 gauge silicone wire.

This mounting system is simple and seems to do the job well. So far the headlamp has not shifted down while in use.

Front of the charger has a charge status light that is Red while charging, Yellow as completion of charge nears, and Green when charging is complete. When I put a volt meter to it, I only got 8 volts. Also, when it finished charging the pack, it was also only at 8 volts.

The driver has a couple parallel R200 resistors. It has not step down thermal protection. I does not work on one cell. Just flashed on voltage indicator LED continuously.

Switch side of driver:

Cells Uncovered (Like much of this review there are some mouseovers to save space):

The wires exiting the pack (inside the black sheath) appear to be about 22 or maybe 20 gauge.

I tried to test the board in the picture below by doing the following:

  • Connected to 2 cells that were below 2.5 volts. The board did not feed power.
  • Connected to 2 cells above 2.5 volts but over 1 volt different in voltage level. The board did not feed power.
  • Then connected to 2 cells, both at 4.15 volts. The board did not feed power

What did this tell me? Nothing. It could be that the board permanently shuts down after an imbalance or low voltage occurs. It could be I did something wrong. I did tell me that I am not qualified to evaluate this board.

Beamshots:

The above is High mode. I will take shots of the other modes soon. It has a flasher mode that activates by pressing and holding down the mode switch button.

Conclusion:

Reminder that the charger and cells have not been reviewed here. I recommend you assume they are junk. If they turn out otherwise, it will be a pleasant surprise. With that in mind:

  • As a Bike light, I like it a lot. May be better suited for on-road then off-road riding. I think one would want even wider spill for off-road.
  • As headlamp, I really like it if you ignore the obtrusive battery pack. Once I replace that, this will be my go to headlamp.
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Other than the charger and cells, I believe this review is complete enough to give a fair representation of the product. Please let me know if any additional information is needed. I'll do my best to add it.

EDIT: I plan to do the following and report back:

  • Measure current consumption on the 3 modes
  • Determine how hot the light gets on high and if the light steps down
  • Determine type of cells in the battery pack
  • Try to determine how the charger functions
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Always wondering how is the mode like.

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It has 3 modes (Low, Med, High) with good separation. I would prefer even wider separation, but have not seen any stock light in this price range with wider separation than this light.

I will try to take beam shots of the 3 modes tonight.

Thank you for asking freeme.

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Thank you for the review. :slight_smile:
I noticed something weird.

I don’t understand. Are you talking about over voltage protection?

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I have (had) few variants of this SolarStorm X2 type of headlight. Never purchased in a package with batteres and charger as the battery pack in most cases is rubbish. It has protection circuit but none of them prevents the cell from became unbalanced. With poor cells this happens rather quick and you can't charge it full. It does prevent to overcharge each pair of cells that's why you can't charge it fully to 8.4V. ImA4Wheelr, this might be the case you thought the charger can't pass 8V. Probably it can even overcharge the pack without protection circuit. At least I had a few such ones.

The lights itself are good for their's tipical price. Of course none of them had thermal paste anywhere around the pill. Some pills were press fit, some with threads and some just loose and fell apart when opened. Luckily never got the one with no pill at all.

Modes should be much better separated. All I 've seen so far are 33% 66% 100%. It should be 5%, 35%, 100% or like.

Beam is bit to narrow for MTB, could be good for helmet light, but not for the bar one. I would try to mod it with 21mm TIR lenses to get better beam.

BTW, you can get it for lower price and if you are lucky you can get the head only for around $12 on ebay.

EDIT: no need to be lucky -> see THIS

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It does not steps down AFAIK. If you do a bit better closeup pictures of the circuit one can tell more (comparing to others seen so far). It is also unregulated so it is getting dimmer as voltage drops. Voltage drop is important to 3 signaling leds. Better (thicker) wires would prevent bigger voltage drop.

Charger is probably tipical low cost 8.4V 1A. You should test it if does not overcharge with some spare old Panasonics or Sanyos. You can leave them to be overcharged for 0.1-0.2V safely. I had bad experience with some EU plug type ones. Some even does not stop charging or charge even if you connect fully charged pack. That's why protection circuit in the battery pack is important.

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lagman wrote:

I don’t understand. Are you talking about over voltage protection?

I don't understand either. I tried to test it to determine what it does (OP has been updated for new testing). It seems to have bricked out. All I ca say is that it connects to the cells like a balancing circuit. It also connects the cells to the light. I it appears to be at minimum a balancing circuit. I may also serve an overcharge/over discharge protection role. I don't have the expertise or equipment to determine. I Googled the heck out of it and found nothing.

ledoman wrote a bunch of stuff:

My testing also determined there is not thermal step down (OP has been updated for new testing). Mine does seem to regulate current fairly well. There is an inherent limit to regulation though when you have 2S cells and 2S emitters. I also agree that buying the charger and battery pack is a waste of money.

As far as those cheap you units you linked too. Hopefully they are the real thing and are not this:

The below driver may be fine, but appears to be less sophisticated.

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Moved mod to a separate thread here.

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nice boost in power!

Definitely need to beef up the thermal capabilities when you kick XM-L up to 3A~ or more

Those stock batteries are the typical Chinese bulk stock crap (found in those cheap mobile power units and such)…would be better to build your own pack out of known good cells even laptop pulls would double the mAh rating or more…either way they are functional but uber cheap batteries

I wonder if one Cool White and one Warm White in that light will create a wide spectrum light, or go with 2 T6-4C neutral and be done with it

Also those A2SHB FET’s wonder if a swap out with some of the irlm2502’s would boost the power out

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Nice work. I think I have never seen this variant of driver. I've got green and black ones. You may read a looong story about those type of lights at MTBR started by well known Leaftye.

Senese resistor mod is getting you to much current for such small housing. It will overheat unless you will use it on Hi only during moving (cycling).

I would suggest you to correct review about battery protection circuit. I'm 100% it is not balancing in any way. I've never seen it even with beter Magicshine packs. It is basicaly only overcurrent, overvoltage protection similar to those built on the batteries. Difference is only it is for two cells. Have you managed to measure voltage of each pair of cells before dissaembling or separate charging? This would tell you more.

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WarHawk-AVR,

Thank for those thoughts. Was thinking about mixing tint too. No sure I want to with just 2. Seems like the different right and left spill would be too distracting. I need to look into that FET idea for just generall knowledge. This light was overdriven stock and 3 amps will just need to be used as a short turbo if there is no air movement.

ledoman,

Thank you for you thoughts. Wow, that's a monster thread. I agree. 3 amps per emitter is too much for this little guy when not in motion.

Not sure what you mean about correct my review. I only speculated about what I think it mostly likely is. Why do you think it connects to all three points in the cell bank? The PCB is clearly marked that it is supposed to be connected that way too. All cells were equal voltage levels when I torn down the pack, but that doesn't prove it's a balancing circuit by itself.

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By my experiences all those (I've seen so far) circuits does not do balancing. Three connections are used only to monitor voltage of each pair and doesn't allow to overcharge any of the pairs. It also cuts of power in case of leads shorting or when overdischarged. That is all I know they are doing. As said even pricier Magicshine packets does not have balancing capabilities.

You are right, if all cels were of same voltage it doesn't prove anything but cells are probably equal.

You can easily prove it by connecting two cells of different voltages and try to charge. Maybe yours is different. Who knows with all those chinese variants. Would like to know about it.

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I'll update the OP with that info so that it clear that it is not likely a balancing circuit. I hope it's ok if I reference your post as the source. If not, please let me know and I will delete the reference.

I will try the charging thing you mentioned and report back. As stated in the OP, I tried to drive the light with cells of different voltages and it would not transmit any power. Unfortunately, it doesn't transmit power with matched cell after that. So I don't know if it bricks out when tripped with an imbalance or if I inadvertently damaged the circuit. I would like to know more about it too because I could use it if is does include a balancing circuit.

Thanks again ledoman for taking the time to share your knowledge. Good info.

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freeme,

I told you I would try to take more beam shots. I didn't take any last night as it was raining last night. I will get some after I finish modding the light. The light will be slightly brighter in the lower modes from stock, but should still give a general idea.

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You can take me as reference no problem. If the circuit doesn't give any power it has probably triped out. Short charge should put it back into life, same as with protected 18650.

No problem to adding you some of my knowledge. I've been into bicycle lights for few years now.

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ImA - just spotted this review! Pills are just like my SolarStorm X3:

I added the thermal paste and as posted previously elsewhere I also upgraded to XM-L2 T5 5B1 emitters for a glorious tint! I also just finished rigging up a method to measure battery pack currents (i.e. "tailcap current") on these lights (will post in a new thread) by buying these power connectors used for CCTV use and wiring them up like so (bottom of pic):

I then connect up my DMM inline and toggle modes (and also see the drain while in "off" position) - here is High mode on mine:

I'm also using the famous Pannova battery pack/holder. Perhaps you should invest in one. It's available from DX cheaper and found on Ebay too.

-Garry

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personally more tempted by a Gemini Duo clone from Yinding for my bike

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Sweet setup Garry. I think I need to copy some of that.

Although the pills are pressed in nicely, my testing indicates that they or the aluminum bases are not pulling out the heat fast enough (Had significant thermal sag, but current remained steady at 2amps/emitter and exterior temp only hit 195F). I think I will replacing my pill with copper. Not much copper though because the the limited surface area will be the next bottleneck.

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Hi nisse. Welcome to the forum. You got a link to that light you mentioned?