Opportunity to build a 100% Custom, Inexpensive, Well Made Bike Light

[raven38571]

I would like it to work with batteries in parallel. I don’t like using or charging batteries in series.

[garrybunk]

Good ideas! I can see this is going to be tough to get BLF opinions voiced over to MTBR (or at least every opinion) and I don't want to be unfair and only voice the opinions I agree with either :) .

We're going to have to be careful to keep the description of the light fairly simple in order to get our ideas across in Chinese, or else it would come back a mess!

-Garry

[garrybunk]

@MountainKing

Interested in this one. Does anyone care to make a google doc for ease of knowing what to include/not include in the bike light like the one I did as per link hereunder? Unfortunately IS did not go ahead with the AA light but it was a learning experience for me and I enjoyd making the form! Illumn AA Flashlight wish list - by BLF user MountainKing

You can go right ahead if you'd like! My time is pretty limited. I can add a link to it in the O.P. once created too.

-Garry

[Legolas_Jr]

I’m in depending on price. I’ll let the cyclists here suggest features; I’m not very experienced in that area, so I don’t know what’s best. (I’m all for a good neutral tint and high drive current, though! :bigsmile: )

[nisse]

Interested in road bike use so typical round flashlight style beam will not do it for me (and hide flashing mode because it is not legal over here)

[Ronin42]

Some thoughts.

We are all price conscious, so lets not forget that price is a function of volume. Volume is a function of mass market appeal.

Types of riders: MTN, Road, Commuter of these road and commuters will prefer less expensive, lighter and simpler. = one piece design = greater volume “demanded”.

MTN bikers have the most demanding requirements as such most ride with two or more lights (when the ride calls for it).

Allow me to ask the maybe un-asked question. “What is it we are trying to accomplish?” We know there are lots of options currently from a $2 mount and a $10 C8/ $20 magicshine up to the Light&Motion, Lupine, lights (and this assumes 18650 batteries only) so what it is we are trying to accomplish?

Lower cost? What is the acceptable upper limit?
More power? How much power do we want to spec and pay for?
Fit an unaddressed need? What is that need or needs?
use technology that is not in the mass market (XHP, MT-G2, custom tints, etc)

I think once we are clear about the objective(s) the answers will flow much more easily. Watch out for scope creep

Any mfg will be happy to sell an additional 500 units so the option does exist to tweak an existing light we may not want to be limited to the single mfg who has been forward thinking enough to have us to R&D for them.

[nisse]

I am in for a 1000 lumen model driven by my Shimano hub dynamo with a reflector mimicking car headlight beam profile if possible

[Ronin42]

Two more points.

1. I really like the Crelant UI. there are two levels and each level as a H/L and each of the four are Ramped. menaing that you can set them for any brightness you like and then just toggle between H/L in each level and between the upper and lower level. so everyone gets what theh want, they can change it and once sorted it is one button click on ot the memeory setting where you left it.

to me this clearly is the best UI.

2. It seems that the last group buy is still working out the fact of lights not meeting spec being shipped, see the last page of Original/Real Yinding YD 2xU2 found | Page 62 | Mountain Bike Reviews Forum

I am just saying that if they cant get the tint right on a producting light, just how complicated can we expect a custom light spec to be and still get executed properly.

$.02

[kralyevski]

i saw someone mentioned neutral white tint but i didn’t saw anything about CRI in this thread…i would say that high CRI is something that is very hard to find in existing bike lights…on the other hand i have noticed that when riding in a woods with triple nichia 219b custom build i feel less fatigue overall when compared with riding with cool white xml’s…so it is not just about output and beam shapes and hot spot angles…if custom bike light is going to be designed here do it with high CRI LED’s

[eebowler]

garry, what’s the PWM like on the yinding?

[garrybunk]

@eebowler

garry, what’s the PWM like on the yinding?

I really don't know. Nothing I noticed, but I'm not sensitive to it and haven't actually ridden with the light yet.

-Garry

[garrybunk]

UPDATE, Posted by GJHS over in the MTBR thread:

@GJHS

Ok I just got word from May that this project will not continue with Yinding. Apparently there were some problems with the other custom builds and Yinding didn't act very responsibly. With the 3C builds they didn't believe the customers that the tint was wrong and GearBest is now having to fix it. So due to this, GearBest does not wish to ask them to build this light.

If you want, I can source another manufacturer to try and build this light or maybe there is another light we can get?

Personally I suggested contacting NiteFighter to see if they will do a custom build. NiteFighter currently sells a BT40s (which I have as head-only on order) which sounds very nice according to MTBR user andychrist.

-Garry

[ledoman]

To many different ideas! We should keep it simple and usable for majority (no way to suits everybody).