Hi! I’ve been unsuccessful in finding a headlight for my road bike with a neutral white tone (3000-3500K or thereabouts) and a cut-off beam pattern, in a similar spirit to the German StVZO road regulation, but not necessarily in strict adherence to, as I don’t live in Germany. Also, I would like to hang the headlight off my computer mount with a GoPro mount. This product doesn’t seem to exist as most bike lights are made with a cool white tone, or those with a neutral tone don’t have a cut beam.
For context, this is pretty much what I’m looking for
I guess it could be possible to replace the emitter but I’d rather not do that on a $200 light, or pay the $200 to begin with.
I did some googling around and found out about this Ledil Filippa lens with an StVZO beam and figured that one option could be trying to fit one of those in a flashlight. I was looking at Noctigon and Convoy as potential options because they let you pick an emitter and the tint, and they seem quite popular in this sphere. I tried searching for chassis dimensions to get an idea of whether the 33mm lens would fit but it seems like manufacturers don’t post a lot about that kind of stuff, or perhaps I just don’t have the vocabulary to ask the right questions. So if anyone could help me out a bit figuring this out I’d appreciate it very much!
I’m a complete noob to modifying flashlights but I’ve studied electronics in the past and have access to a metal workshop with a manual lathe (without tooling to cut threads, sadly) and a milling machine.
Thanks for joining the party, s-werks!
Would it be possible to create a cut-off beam pattern with a regular reflector and some tape (and maybe some plastic)?
I can’t answer most of your questions, but I can say that when I switched from a Magic Shine to a Convoy C8 there was a lot of similarities between the lights as far as the reflectors and output.
I did eventually get a light with the cut out lens and liked the idea but needed way more light than it put out. I rode with a couple of lights anyway so when it got dark enough to need light to see I didn’t get the full effect of the lens. And I’m sure I was a lot slower commuting on my Hardrock than you would be riding something from the S-Werks division!
I’ve seen some folks just cut a strip of aluminum from a beer can and shape it into a sort of a lampshade that prevents dazzling oncomers and can be taken off when the situation calls for the full beam (hilly, winding country roads or mountain bike trails for example), sort of like switching between the high and low beam on car headlights.
Speaking of high beam, that Cyclami unit looks very similar to the Magic Shine Evo, which features a high beam option. The hanging gopro-mount, cut-off beam style lights are gaining traction, but unfortunately no one seems to offer them with a neutral hue.
You could check out the Lumintop B01, I’ve no experience with it so can’t say if it’s any good, nor whether it’s easy to mod to 3000k. It comes with a XP-L HD (domed) LED in 4K CCT - these are a bit long in the tooth nowadays, so you might find others who have documented emitter swaps already- I note this light has an unusual LED mounting directly to the reflector.
The XPL is 3V, 3535 footprint (3.5mm x 3.5mm) emitter, if you were to look for alternatives.
On the modding front, generally, the smaller the light source, the easier it is to “control” the beam, so you would likely want to aim for smaller, high luminous intensity emitters so that the optical design is maximised.
A few people have used the “horizontal stripe TIR lens” in for bike lights, they do not have a sharp cutoff so glare is still a potential issue, but (e.g) a Convoy S2+ and TIR lens is cheap if you wanted to test.
Just as an information for you, I have this light on my bike:
The 5 LED Version with 10Ah battery. I changed the LEDs with 519A 5700K because why not (wasn’t necessary, the tint was OK).
The light is very bright, but you should only use this light without anyone coming towards you, because even with the right theoretical reflector design (LEDs on top shining down), there is a lot of spill upwards.
Luckily I only use it to ride around really dark passages in the forest for example where noone is at night, so it’s good for me, but for the streets it’s definitely unusable.
I will probably try out the light @Hill linked, it’s looking good. I especially like the remote for quick access.
I used a lens like that on my last Magic Shine and it did help some. But whatever you use, it’s still going to bounce around as you ride and the mounting has to be really tight to prevent that from moving around.
If you mount your brightest light on your helmet you’ll have more control as to where the light shines. And that worked better for me than to try and aim something on the handlebars and hope for the best when I started moving. And I did this when most lights were claimed to be “1,000 lumens”
I cycle a lot less than I used to, but used to use a twofish lockblock mount with 18650 “cigar shaped” lights, didn’t ride hardcore trails but the setup held up fine for shortcuts down stairs and up/down curbs.
I joined a credit union that was about 7 miles from my home via a mixture of side streets, bike paths and parking lots with a number of turns, hills and a couple of underpasses. It was a lot of fun in the dark, even the time I didn’t realize I’d left the deposit at home. Being able to see as I turned and went up and down hills really helped, a cut off beam would have worked against me there.
I did some riding with a striped lens convoy M21H. It worked ok but not great. I mean it did limit the beam quite well, but it did so both upwards and downwards so I either had to point it down at the front wheel to see where I place it exactly but be basically blind further than 5-10 meters in front of the bike or point it forward and see the road ahead but have no visibility for the front wheel itself
My solution to this is to use a regular flashlight with a long throw. Then point the light close to the front wheel. The one I have now is 200 lumen with a 1200 foot throw. Gun lights or varmit lights generally fit this requirement and are waterproof. Then use a brighter light for high speed down hill. Again a weapon light can be bought with a remote switch you can press with your thumb without rwmoving your hands from the brakes. If you are going to paint the lens use silver paint to reflect the light back into the reflector.
