in common with many other men, I have red/green colour blindness, and am unable to tell the state of chargers with LEDs that change between red and green to indicate completion, so I just leave the thing plugged in for 6 or 8 hours in the hope that the battery will be fully charged. A couple of times this winter my Hope Vision 4 has crapped out during a ride, so I was about to send it back to Hope – but then I saw the Hope video last week explaining that the pack has to be connected to the charger before it's plugged into the wall socket – and I'd been doing it the opposite way! Sorted I thought, and I did as I was told. This Wednesday, the light lasted 10 minutes on low power and was then totally dead 🙁 I brought it into work ready to send it back, but thought I'd have one last go at charging, getting a colleague to confirm the colours, and in the evening the light ran for 3 1/2 hours on full power. I've also realised there's an audible indication when charging is complete – a "squirpling" noise which I take to be magnetostriction in the inductor.

So now I know there's nothing wrong with the battery, but I have low confidence in my ability to charge it reliably, having gotten 2 such different results from doing the same thing 🙁

Stick with Wonder Lights, you can touch the two connectors on your tongue to check the charge.

I love the way my Vision Four switches off mid descent, it makes it more exciting.

I love the way my Vision Four switches off mid descent, it makes it more exciting.

given that our night rides are never more than 2h30m it should never happen – and I always run a head torch too – but yes, you want to be confident in your lights 🙁

If you talk to hope and ask really nice, they might be able to change the LEDs to colours you can distinguish?

Alternatively, try a red filter (eg red cellophane) and look at the LEDs through that: the red should look bright and the green dark (if the filter cuts off sharply enough below red wavelengths).
Works for me here with the red side of some 3d glasses I've got on my desk – if I set the LED on my phone to flash alternately red and green, the green flash is completely invisible through the filter (oh, and vice versa of course through the green side of the glasses) 🙂

I love the way my Vision Four switches off mid descent, it makes it more exciting.

given that our night rides are never more than 2h30m it should never happen – and I always run a head torch too – but yes, you want to be confident in your lights

I run the V4 as my head torch and a V1 on the bars as a back up. It's only on the big hits that the lights turn off, I'm getting good at descending with one hand on the bars try to turn the lights back on.

Alternatively, try a red filter (eg red cellophane)

yes, that was suggested to me today – is it an excuse to buy a big tin of chocs to get the right coloured film ?

I'm getting good at descending with one hand on the bars try to turn the lights back on.

that does sound exciting :o)

Some LED lights have a secret voltage meter built in. With my Lumi Led3 you need to be holding the switch up when you connect the battery. After the ride last night I tested it and it gave me 15 green flashes, pause, 2 orange flashes. If I refer to the special interpretation table that gives a voltage of, er, let me think, 15.2 volts.

Of course with your condition you might get 4.13 volts, but the pause gives a clue.

Or you could go and see Avatar…

Some LED lights have a secret voltage meter built in

that's interesting but I just want it to work …

That's a very wierd (and non-foolproof) charging sequence. Interesting point about teh red/green LEDs though, I have plenty of colourblind friends (now I think about it one of them's ginger and may not even know!) and had never considered the problems they might have charging stuff. It's a female conspiracy I tell ya, all that maggie thatcher's fault…

dunno about Hopes but my sigmas also have a habit of turning off on the trail. My theory is the problem is the circuitry inside the lamp convinces itself that the battery is dying (perhaps a bad connection causes a low voltage reading for a split second) and the whole thing switches itself off. Unplugging and replugging seems to clear it till next time.

mate of mine (the ginger colourblind one) just got some V4s and is completely made up with them at the moment, although he does have a history of destroying Lumicycle chargers and batteries so I may have a word with him about his charging habits….

Unplugging and replugging seems to clear it till next time

this is by no means easy with the Hopes, as they have these waterproof connectors which take at least a minute to undo if you don't want to risk ripping the wires out… apparently I need some silicone lube.

It will tell you before the ride if you have a flat battery though.

now I think about it one of them's ginger and may not even know!

😆 He may think he's a fetching green colour in fact! I too am red/green colour blind, it can be an annoying thing sometimes can't it! 🙁

It will tell you before the ride if you have a flat battery though.

which is kinda beside the point, as I don't have one of those – the Hope has a single button off/low/med/high/very high/flashing

Yes, but what happens if you attach the battery with the button pressed in?

Yes, but what happens if you attach the battery with the button pressed in?

you'll have to ask a 3 handed person…

[edit]I've tried holding the button down with my teeth but it's not working 🙁

LED solution with red filter:

top 2 identical LEDs (to me)
middle: right red LED bright thru filter
bottom: left green LED dim thru filter

NOTE even I can see that the left LED looks yellower in the photos, but not in real life…

Wouldn't it be possible to disconnect one of the LED's? Maybe the "fully charged" green/yellowy one so that you only get a light displayed (red) when it's still charging.

Wouldn't it be possible to disconnect one of the LED's

I suspect it'll be a 2-way single LED, red one wire +ve and green the other. Also any warranty goes out of the window if you tamper with the charger, and Lithium batteries pose a significant fire hazard so I'd be reluctant to fiddle

Simon, you're handy with a soldering iron, make up a filtered photodiode to detect the green and not the red, put it in a case that sits above the existing LED and has only 1 LED output from it. Non-destructive colour discrimination. Easy.

Then write to Hope and tell them to use green/yellow bi-colours?

Then write to Hope and tell them to use green/yellow bi-colours?

Hope said:
I am sorry to hear that you have trouble identifying the colour of the indicator LED on the charger. We have been made aware of the colour blindness issue on a couple of occasions before. We have looked at a number of different battery charger options for our Li-Ion battery packs over the years we have been producing the lighting systems but all the chargers we looked at were only available as a red/green indicator. As I'm sure you will appreciate this is a design feature that is beyond our control since we outsource the chargers so unfortunately there is no short term solution. We will however bear this in mind when developing future lighting systems and we will always try our best to satisfy the demads of all our consumer market.

blue/yellow would suit me better 🙂 Or flashing/not flashing like my Nikon charger

As I'm sure you will appreciate this is a design feature that is beyond our control since we outsource the chargers so unfortunately there is no short term solution

That is "we can't be arsed changing it" as the company that makes the chargers would switch out to different colours for pence if required. It's hardly difficult or expensive to change, just laziness in using an off-the-shelf solution.

See if the case cracks open withot damaging stickers etc, replace LED, replace again if it goes faulty and send back. Or accept that for the sake of the warranty on the charger you're lights are unreliable and useless.

I don't think blue-yellow exist. Fairly sure I've seen red-blue tough?

Or make the photodetector circuit and have the best of all worlds, my students prototyped this system last year and it worked a treat.

I have the same problem with all things red and green
best charger is for my makita drill flashes when chargeing and stops flashing when ready no idea what colour the leds are though

red and blue would be better

That is "we can't be arsed changing it"

agreed 🙁

Or accept that for the sake of the warranty on the charger you're lights are unreliable and useless.

well, now using my magic red filter I can at least tell what state the charger is in. What I need to determine is, is the charger unreliable – does it sometimes go to green even with an almost flat battery ? I also now know that it gets to fully charged in about 4 hours from flat.

How are you with traffic lights? My eldest son is very red/green colour blind and the first few times out teaching him to drive were a bit of a worry. He seems to be OK with them now, but I've no idea how.

How are you with traffic lights?

ha ha, that's easy because the red is at the top 🙂 Also the effect seems to be area dependant – I can't tell with point sources but a traffic light is about 140mm wide