I dont ride at night very often. I love it, but do it rarely.

So, i have some Cateye double, and triple shots. They’re great lights and fine for my needs, but the batteries have died a death from a combination of little use, and staying discharged for a long time.

I would like to replace the batteries ideally, but Cateye dont make the light anymore. Does anyone here make battery packs bespoke… that are reliable, and rugged? I cant be arsed with complicated weak cables.

I have the controller box still attached to the bottom of the batt packs from the Cateyes, and if i were a dab hand with the soldering iron (which i’m not) i might try myself.

So, any suggestions from the STW collective about who/where/what to get??

smudge is the stw resident battery expert. He has a website I think this is it

http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/

For batteries Smudge from here is a good starting point.

http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/

Also trout (on here too) did a good job of upgrading some one elses Triple shot to muchos brightness. I think he would certainly be able to offer you advice etc.

http://troutie.com/

I used to have the Tripleshot but lost the charger last year which would have been £50 to replace! So for me I went down a set of Troutie DIY 1800 lumen lights (your triple shorts are about 300 lumens).

I took the tripleshot battery pack apart and it is just normal rechargeable batteries with some kind of regulator attached to the pack. You could in theory buy some ordinary rechargeable batteries, put them in new battery holders and wire them in to the existing circuit. However these batteries are heavy and bulky compared to modern technology and your lights are very under powered.

Trout DIY lights…

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/diy-900-lumen-and-1800-lumen-kits

sweet, thanks for the responses.
I’ll be contacting Smudge, RE some new batts then.

The Triple/double combo is plenty enough lighting for me, and the places i ride. So, re-vamping these lights would be the best move.

Although, the Troutie Mini looks perfect for the helmet light. Any reviews from users on this light? Robust cabling? Good helmet mount?

thanks

I think Smudge may also have some XM-L lamp units to sell (which he’s checked out) – they may be cheaper than a new battery pack

So that’s what exactly?
If you mean a all-in-one light, then maybe it would be fine. BUT, whats the overall run-time on one of those types of unit?

It all starts to get a bit bewildering with options from this point on.

It a “XM-L” LED head unit connected a battery, typically lasting between 2-3 hrs on full beam, a lot longer on one of the lower setting.
Somthing similar looking to this:

I can recommend the XML that Smudge is selling (had a limited number I thought), though I’ve not used mine other than to test it yet… give it a couple of months (winter) and I’ll tell you the exact run times.

Thanks for the email Lardman I will reply to it later in more detail but these are the lights I am now selling.

I received new stock a few weeks ago as the first batch sold out really quickly.

and a typical beam shot (from troutie.com)

There’s more details either on my website or follow me on facebook facebook

Smudge

can definitely recommend a trout+smudge combo 😀

haven’t used my lights since winter, want to use them tomorrow night so figured i’d run any remaining charge out the batteries then re-charge them tomorrow…. they’ve been running since 6am, only dimming to stop themselves from overheating!

i loves em, wish it got darker earlier all year round so i could use them more 😀