I had them with SMO and OP reflector and it's not a big difference, actually hardly noticeable diff...
Thanks for the great review, a lot of detail and some excellent pics and beamshots.
The wide angle lense is also very useful with these lights for a floodier beam and flattened hotspot:
http://www.action-led-lights.com/collections/accessories/products/wide-angle-lens
Thanks a lot whokilledJR. I was reading a thread somewhere about those diffusers and apparently they make a perfect beam for riding. I'll try to find it, I think it was on the MTB forum.
wa lens in action :P
that’s just a PCB to protect against overcurrent and overdischarge, it won’t balance the cells. Theoretically it’s supposed to shut the pack down when the two parallel banks (4 cell) or cells (2 cell) become too imbalanced, but I doubt that happens otherwise you wouldn’t get all the duff Chinese bike light battery complaints.
To be fair though, I’m not aware of any bike light battery, even by Lupine (the “BMW” of bike lights), that has either an internal or external balance function. Perhaps because they’re big’n’heavy, perhaps because of the added cost (balance PCBs seem to ring in at 3-5x the price of simple PCBs, at least in retail). The higher end manufacturers rely on decent quality well matched cells (Samsung and Panasonic, some Sanyo), the low end ones rely on you buying another light when the battery dies. Given that one cheap Chinese bike light is a fraction of the price of one Lupine battery, it’s not an unreasonable strategy.
If that circuit board is the one that he linked to, it does do balancing…
I’ve taken a lot of bike light batteries apart, including several Chinese battery packs and none of them have balancing PCBs. The one linked to is not a balancing PCB either, as there are no heavy duty wires to voltage differences between the two banks which is how every single balancing PCB that I’ve ever seen works. Other than high draw power tools packs I’ve never seen a balancing PCB in any battery pack I’ve ever torn down (~100 or so), bike battery, laptop battery or camcorder battery.
They all have voltage monitoring wires/ tabs to go between banks (for want of a better description) so that they can monitor individual bank voltage to prevent overcharging of individual banks (supposedly), but they’re not used for balancing. Hell, I’ve even bought and used several 2S PCBs that look exactly like the one linked to and they weren’t balancing PCBs either.
This would be a good example
and one that I was considering for a pack
That pic clearly shows a heavy strap to the middle connection of the two cells. Also, balance leads do not need to be heavy duty. Most small cell balancers use balance currents of around 50-100 mA at most.
The specs on that Chinese board mentions that it balances but does not specify the balance current.
that strap is on every single 2S PCB, balance/ equilibrium function or not. If you want, PM mtbmacguyver on mtbr, he can ID PCB components and tell if they’re balance capable or not as this is how I know, for example, that Lupine batteries do not have balancing built in. I also have some 2S PCBs that look just like that which ktronik on mtbr designed, so he’ll most likely know what he’s talking about with regard to PCBs and balancing.
Most Chinese bike light batteries die prematurely because they go out of balance due to one bank having a higher self-discharge rate than the other (in fact, that seems to be what kills most of the packs I tear apart), so having a bike light battery that incorporates balance charging would be a huge step forward for the industry and there’d be a lot of people very excited to hear about it. I guess the only way to know for sure would be to hook it up to 2 deliberately out of balance cells (not so much to cause dangerous overcharging if not, obviously) and see what voltages they are when the charger terminates charging.
They don't have balancing capability. You can go HERE and see for yourself what wire configuration you need for balancing just select 2s2p...