Sounds to me like Huntking and Zanflare need to send product test units out to our community for testing. If they are not willing to do that then I think we have our answer.
yes i would be glad to test it…
wle
Garrybunk, thanks for checking in on this.
The MTBR folks have made a respectable effort to specify the design for a good bike light — the sort of free design help BLF folks have offered several flashlight manufacturers.
What color temp (K) are the LEDs Zanflare is using for the B3?
Is it programmable, with the gear folks here use to improve firmware on drivers?
I don’t see the usefulness of including SOS as one of the modes.
Oh c’mon Hank, we all know how useful it is when being chased by a bear on your bike to be able to quickly get to an SOS mode!
-Garry
I think a lot of that research data is from people who don’t know any better, but choose the NW 80% of the time when they see a comparison. The CW emitters are generally cheaper which is why so many companies use them. Not because people want them. IMO.
It’s also one of the reasons for a huge after market of quality emitters. People want to change the cheap ones the lights come with.
Can you get access to the driver board to attach one of the programming clips used to improve the firmware, as people here do so often?
Nefertari responded to my email that she moved on to another position and gave no response to this issue - just a new rep to contact.
-Garry
So Zanflare was one rep deep?
Good to know, and makes sense in hind sight.
No these are GearBest reps. Zanflare is a house brand of GearBest. So apparently Nefertari was assigned to “forums” but now someone else is. Nefertari was our contact at MTBR during the custom build.
-Garry
Strange, that BG web page says:
Gearbest now accepting pre-orders: zanflare B3 3 LED Bike Light -$49.99.
Nefertari’s replacement, Jona responded to my email, however she made no comments regarding my inquiry as to why the MTBR custom light / group buy was cancelled while still proceeding with a similar light without informing us they were doing so. She asked if I wanted to head up a group buy on BLF (she didn’t even mention MTBR), but I declined saying no one is going to jump into a group buy without seeing a review of the light proving it’s worth the cost and also that the light lacks several features desired by the biking community.
-Garry
Thank you Gary, well done.
Well, now we see their business model.
Sad. I hope you’ll press for answers.
Hey Zanflare — are you claiming to have done the MTBR design work.
Or were you given the design and told to build them for sale?
What size battery is used for the runtime?
Why control the led’s individually? Does each one have a different beam pattern?
What optics are used and can they be changed if I don’t like the beam pattern?
Are there beamshots available?
(Copied from my post on MTBR)
Jona from GearBest is willing to setup a group buy for $10 less than the current “promotional” price. She is willing to send at least one out for review prior to orders. She also says we can provide feedback on features we’d like changed, but I wouldn’t expect them to make major changes. My suspicion is that we might be able to change modes/operation but not change from reflectors to optics.
Does this interest many? Or do you feel like I sort of do - that they screwed us (MTBR) over and shouldn’t get our business anymore?
By the way, I asked another Chinese webshop to consider working with us to provide the original MTBR custom build light. The rep I’m corresponding with expressed interest and passed it on to her supervisors. So this may be an option, though it will certainly take awhile.
-Garry
I read over at MTBR as well as here, though less often. I’d think the MTBR folks best able to test a sample in use on bikes.
I’d think they should send out more than one single sample — some to MTBR and some to BLF to evaluate the driver and LED used.
The way I see it the only person that got screwed over was JGHS, the rest of us just didn’t get the lights we wanted. Gearbest was dragging their heels and had some design problems, after getting roasted repeatedly from forum members including an Ituo distributor I can see why they pulled the plug.
Troubled past (mostly due to a weak former design team), nothing special in terms of output, just now discovering neutral white is important, unproven manufacturer and support. There’s a few warning flags right there. Its going to take a solid review and a good deal on Bak batteries packaged in to get many people interested.
I can say from reading their “info” on this light and the zanflare rep posts that this light is goong to be a ton of fluff and this seperate led thing is IMHO just dumb.
As for daytime use, lights like these arent for road bikes. And having them get hot during the day isnt surprising at all. Cheap light suck in general for heat dissipation. Plus BLACK MATERIAL GETS HOT AS HELL IN SUNLIGHT, doesnt need any help so just worse because sunlight is amplifying the heat that needs to be dissipated.
@Zanflare: your market data is false. 2/3 buy cool white not by choice, thats how most lights are made. Cool white emitters appear brighter (but you cant see safely for crap) and are cheaper. Neutral white you can actually see whats in front of you. All the manifacturers that arent neutral white fully yet offer nuetral white or have fully switched to nuetral white.
Truth be told, us over at MTBR are the ones that fully understand bike lights. Night riding is life for us. But I know most brands dont want us to get ahold of their lights because one of the first things I do is put it on my integrated sphere. And the light your building isnt going to produce 2200 lumens. Too many things are being done wrong for that.
You have our good Head design (though screwing over GJHS wasnt cool) but you really need to quite trying to do things like using reflectors. Especially for the price.
Ill break a few things down for you:
3 leds on full time with simple modes is more efficient. To get 700 lumens on single emitter with you reflector/lens plan your pushing 2+ Amps out of the best cree xm-l2 or xpl. Then your trying to push the math from there.
Nothing about this light is “new technology”. 3 seperate led system has been done and was abandoned by most. Split led lights are everywhere.
The internal design in your pictures is the same failed design of every other cheap light. Poor thermal path. Which is the other reason why 2200 lumens will not be acheived. Trying to push high heat from the leds straight through the electronics with poor thermal path. Which means you had to turn the power down.
If you want to be able to compete with other brands, you have a lot of work and research to do. Or as is it can be an ok light but needs to be sold at a price that makes more sense.