I am looking for new headlight for my electric scooter. I need something like Lumintop B01, but better:
Because of higher speeds and smaller wheels I need more light, so at least 1000 lumens.
Most of my commute is within the city, so I need to have something not-blinding, with good cut-off beam of light. I just need good illumination of the ground.
Nice to have features, but not necessary are:
3. On 21700 (preferably) or 18650 batteries.
4. Easy to detach and use as a regular torch.
Points 1-2 are crucial. This is what I need. Rest of it is optional, if possible. I hour of working time is enough, but even if it’s too long I can just plug it to the scooter battery. Budget is preferably about ~$100, but not more than $150.
Since you’re driving around needing something to illuminate your path quite well, that means we need to take into account 3 things:
1. High CRI. Unsuprisingly, better color rendition does help a lot with general visibility.
2. Cooler color temperature. For normal light usage, I usually prefer 3000-3500k, but for higher visibility, a higher CCT light source does help. I’d recommend looking at CCTs between 4000-5000k.
3. A good beam with good throw and a beam cut-off.
Therefore, I’d actually recommend the S21B with the B35AM LED at 4500k and with the striped optic:
I have been using the Fenix BC30 on the bars for mountain biking it surves its purpose for me.
I recently bought the CSTEBOKE whiich was a great deal when I bought it.
I have been toying around with spending money on one of a Magicshine
Also Raveman has a few lights that might be useful
If I really had the money I probably go in with Outbound These look enticing but whoa the cost!
Thanks for advising. I quite like this idea, since I had Convoy S2+ on SST40 in my hand and it was fairly powerful. Why on B35AM? It’s less powerful, isn’t it?
However - are you sure that this striped optic gives good beam cut-off? I was looking for some pictures in the internet, but it’s hard to tell. It looks more like it stretches the beam rather than forming a good cuf-off. But if it gives a cut-off, which option should I pick?
Weird thing is that it’s cheaper than Lumintop B01 right now, It’s difficult to accept that it might be better
All companies involved in bikelighting that make StVZO approved lighting do that.
I’ve been engaged in trying to get companies to change and they are not interested. Lupine makes far more expensive lights than Outbound but they produce lights with cool white light which is obviously NOT optimal at all. All my testing more than 10 years ago already showed this and has been online all that time, my site is known by these companies and obviously they can do tests themselves to confirm it, but they sell to customers who look at “wow it’s bright” and cater to similarly uninformed “reviewers”.
The Lumintop B01 is cheap but has a poor cutoff, I like the ca. 4500K light colour but as a bike light is not good enough because of the cutoff, it is barely any different for oncoming traffic than a non-cutoff beam unless you aim it low, lower than for optimal illumination of the road, which is what users won’t do.
I tried to get Exposure to make their Optix-S with neutral white 4000K LEDs but I’m not getting anywhere, and this is from someone who worked with them on design issues and ratification. If I can’t get a “yes we will do that” response from them, who will? They cater to “wow it is bright”, which is a market force.
I didn’t try out the Outbound yet, in price not so different from the Optix-S, much lower than Lupine, I am curious about the beam pattern in my own experience (beam shots do NOT tell all due to camera limitations and showing stuff on a computer screen is different from seeing it in reality).
Outbound is actually very open about all the details of their lights. Go the mtbr.com threads, and he’ll answer any question. The emitters on the Detour are XD16 5700K 80CRI. A link to the thread about the Detour is below. The Detour fits the OP’s needs except that it would be over his budget including shipping and customs fees shipping to Europe. The other Outbound threads going back years also explains all the design decisions of all his lights along the way.
The appeal of Outbound is that the founder is an optics engineer who has designed optics for automobiles. This is exactly the shortcoming for the headlamp (both in the sense of wearing on the head and having on a bike or other vehicle) designs that I see on BLF in the usage cases of higher than walking speed travel.
On review threads of various flashlights or headlamps here and on CLP and independent review blogs, the biggest shortcoming I see in general is the lack of characterization of the beam pattern of the lights. A white wall shot tells close to nothing. I want the answer to “if you are pointing the light up the trail at a sustainable output (no turbo!) for continuous use, do you have a smooth carpet of light from your feet (or tire) to the distant point?” Outbound’s whole selling point is designing around that. It’s only too bad for me they are focused on bikes now, and the current designs are too unbalanced for headstrap mounting.
5700K is absolutely not optimal at all. 4000-4200K is far better for comfort, seeing (judging) the road surface when it is wet, and for riding in foggy conditions.
That makes me less interested to order one to try out for on my website.
It is also not clear on the beamshots or descriptions how sharp the cutoff is. For Lupine lights and the Optix-S the cutoff is very sharp which means you can easily aim it properly with little light going above the horizon, and the vague ctuoff was what killed my interest in the Lumintop B01 (I gave it away).
The B01 already delivers 850 lumen on high. To a human eye, the difference between 850 and 1000 lumen is practically none. You would need to triple the lumen output in order to have meaningful increase in brightness.
That doesn’t look bad for a casual biker. They’ve got it shining upwards in the beam shot :person_facepalming: but the reflector design looks like it would minimize blinding oncoming traffic.
Probably mod-friendly. The version with mounting clips looks like it would fall off with minimal effort. Maybe nylon ties? The model with tabs for action-cam style mounting might be a little better.
Yes, I’d not pick 5700K either. Outbound explains that their first lights were Lumiled Altilons, which are limited in color range as automotive qualified emitters, and they picked the warmest they could get. Since then, they’ve needed to be homogenous across product lines because cyclists often use two lights together. Suggests if you are handy, you could do an emitter swap. More here:
This video shows the cutoff pretty well:
I’ve read all his posts on mtbr even though I don’t own any of his lights. It’s just gold for the light geek and highly recommended/interesting reading. A lot to learn about optics, starting a new company, and manufacturing.
For constant 1000 lumen you need separated head with good cooling fins and battery pack or connect it direct to scooter batts. Maybe extra headlamp will help
OMG! I see it went in towards different areas than I expected. I do not really care about the temperature of light. I believe there are some differences, but perhaps not as important for me.
What I really care is the amount of light (yeah I agree, 750 vs 1000 lumens is barely visible, so I assume it should be 1500 at least). But what I am focused to is the distribution of light and good cut off.
If I need some extra cooling - that’s fine.
If I need to use internal scooter battery - that’s fine
If I need to add some optics to have this cut-off - that’s fine
If I need to buy stuff and do some soldering - fine as well
The only thing is I don’t have welder.
Just need the solution which I can apply. I prefer simple, but if it’s not possible I can put out myself.
Points 1-2 are crucial. This is what I need. Rest of it is optional, if possible. I hour of working time is enough, but even if it’s too long I can just plug it to the scooter battery. Budget is preferably about ~$100, but not more than $150.
