spot on there Squeekybrakes.

Looking on the cutter website it seems he is running a 'back order' for the XPG's when he gets them in, so I have no idea how long it will be before he can dispatch them to us if we are to order them.

As I mentioned before a triple XRE R2 is a bright light. It's just the XPG's give about another 30% whilst using the same current.

stumpy01 – No, you need to know the input current drawn by the driver not 680mA (the constant current supplied to the LEDs) & battery voltage will gradually drop as the batteries discharge & will be less when under load.
The driver efficiency will also make a difference.

Now I have it working I am going to try and opu a resistor in the system with a two position switch. The instructions that came with the driver claim a 200k resistor will drop the current by half. The board will allow this driver to be switched in or out. This together with a new 2 position switch from maplins will give the ability to eek out far more battery life and hopefully alleviate concerns about heat by having 2 power settings. A low and a high.

Before I added the resistor to the one above I just wanted to make sure it all fitted first.

I'll see if i can get hold of a small resistor this week and then try to fit it in.

what diameter is the lumi can? just hatching similar conversion for old cateyes…

33mm Inside Diameter

The aluminium disc you used as a heasink is also available here

<http://www.wheelspinmodels.co.uk/car/item/HPI-72234-Traction-Control-Gear-Hub-9-X-33mm-Nitro-Mt__786f/&gt;

Looks like the drivers are also avalable again through the ebay seller. Any ideas how long he boards take to arrive from cutter?

Cheers Squeeky. I noticed that seller only had one heatsink on ebay. so ta, least people have a chance of getting one from this alternative source.

I think if you get the XRE's from Cutter they will take 2 maybe 3 weeks. The XPG's are all on back order.

Damn, just ordered a quad XRE with a Vf of ~14v and my battery is only 13.2V (I've ordered the driver from the Ebay guy too). Assuming my understanding is correct, I really should have the voltage difference the other way round? Anything I can do? I do have an appropriate battery, but I'm trying to use an old Lumi bottle battery I've got. RTFM and all that!!

Woody, i'll have the quad off you when it arrives. Some of my mates will want to upgrade from their triples and we have 14.8v batteries so they will be fine.

Do you want me to add a triple XRE and narrow optic to my order?

Plus gents here are two comparison shots just taken

Brand new Lumi HID 6 deg

my halogen conversion using triple Q4 XRE and narrow cutter optic. driven at 670ma

woody2000 – you can use a different LED driver like the MaxFlex5 from Cutter. That actually needs the input voltage to be less than the total Vf of the LEDs, although this can lead to increased heat sinking requirements. Although if the nominal voltage from the battery is 13.2V I suspect it will be higher than 14V fresh of the charger. This will put the driver out of regulation meaning you can't dim the LEDs. Check out TaskLEDs website for all sorts of different driver options and info.

Hmmm, I take it that means it's a boo-boo then! I'll have a go at the conversion with the quad – I've got a 14.8V battery too from a Lumi HID, and I could always run the HID from the 13.2V battery. Bit underwhelmed with the HID TBH, I was expecting to be blown away, but it's not that bright really. Hey ho!

Thanks for the offer though Chucky, very good of you 😀

PS – great guide, really simplified the process for a numpty like me! Though a little knowledge is dangerous in my case! 🙂

Thanks for the info p_s 🙂

Oh and just a point on Chucky's comment on XPG stock at Cutter. As I understand it, it is only the R5s that are on back order. I've just ordered a triple board with XPG R4s and it went though ok. Last order took approx 9 days to be delivered.

No problem, offer stands if you change your mind

Though a little knowledge is dangerous

I think you will find we are all guilty of that

good point Poisonspider.

that makes things better. are you using the XRE optics?

Cheers Chucky – just out of interest, when are you ordering?

Ta

Yes, it's the Ledil Cute 3 narrow spot. In fact I only ordered the stuff today, inspired by your post using the Lumi can.
Using the Lumi can was my original intention but I got side tracked with a 7up XPG R5 Maglite conversion which I still haven't built yet. This should put out about 2450 lumens (that's a lot). However machining the Mag head was too much of a faff so I'm having a custom housing made by a local machine shop. Should be picking it up this week.

2450 lumens !!!! bloody hell. Your giving troute and run for his money with that one.

Just looked on the site and noticed the XPG optic is now back in.

Looks like thats the one to have.

end of this week woody, thats when the order is going in

Nice one, I'll drop you a mail if I change my mind. BTW I used a discount code CPFDISCOUNT from the candlepowerforums when I ordered for a 5% discount, HTH someone.

sure does

Ta woody

I'll post some pics when I get it built.

Hi Chucky,

I've just ordered a couple of bits from Cutter – the shipping was only about £7 and the total value was only about £25 so I figure this way it's unlikely to attract attention for import tax etc. (I don't mind paying the tax, it's the admin fees that I object to!)

I've ordered a triple XP-G R4, and a couple of optics. Have also ordered a 3W 670mA driver board from that chap on eBay. I assume that should work quite happily with the XP-Gs?

Yeah, the driver will work with any of the LED's

triple, quad XRE or XPG

Funny how the XPG's are cheaper than the older XRE's?

Tiboy, I recently sold these and the eBay listing has been removed but here's the griff and pix:-

This auction is for a purpose-built set of lights based on the ever-popular 6-volt Smart twin halogen lights but with heavy-duty upgrades for serious power and long burn-times.

The lights themselves have been upgraded to 2 x 10w bulbs for off-road use. As well as this, the standard switch (occasionally unreliable, at best) has been replaced with two mini-toggle switches that are held in a small casing. This is attached to the unit with a simple stick-on pad to come away in the event of a crash. As can be seen, it comes with two spare reflectors and a complete spare casing. It also comes with 2 x 2.4w, 1 x 6w and 3 x 10w spare halogen bulbs.

I'm also including a Smart Owl 6w / 10w unit as a backup.

The battery packs are the key to a very bright lighting system. These lights usually come with a 4500mAh 6v lead-acid battery but this comes a 10,000mAh (yes, ten-thousand mAh) Ni-MH D-cell battery pack at 7.2volts that weighs about 980gm …. and there are two of these, so you can have one on charge all the time, as the intelligent charger has Delta-V technology!!

They do fit into the Smart carrying cases, as shown.

Over-volting halogen bulbs by 20% is something that Lumicycle have been doing successfully for years. Although it reduces bulb life to about 12% (from about 5000 hours to 600 hours), it also increases brightness to 180% !! No big deal, as these bulbs cost about £2 to £3 each and 600 hours for me is 150 night rides of 4 hours, so I haven't blown one yet 🙂

Also, running 6v bulbs at 7.2v actually gives a marginally 'whiter' light than when running these at 6v.

Read more here:-

http://www.myra-simon.com/myra/bike/lights.html

As expected, the standard Smart charger is not much good for a battery of this size, so this comes with an intelligent 7.2v Delta-V fan-cooled charger that takes about 4-5 hours to boost each battery to full power and then automatically trickle-charges it. If the battery pack is charged in front of a domestic fan, this slightly reduces the charge time – these do get hot when charging but just in case, I'm also including a spare pair of battery housings, still in their wrappers, as shown.

The clever bit is that whilst the standard Smart units offer short burn times, this gives about 3 hours …. at full power!!

A simple formula:-

Standard Smart 10W+2.4W = 12.4w at 6v = 2.07amps which will flatten a 4.5Ah battery in 2 hrs 10 minutes.

These babies 10W+10W = 20w at 6v = 3.33amps which will flatten the 10Ah batteries in 3 hrs …. and that's at full power!! Have just one light on and of course, burn time doubles to 6 hours – in case you're wondering, the 6v relates to the bulb, not the battery. 🙂

So, the kit comes with:-

1 x 10w+10w unit (long beam spot + short beam diffused flood) – the small attachment shown is not included – the lights fit directly to your handlebars, as shown in the spare casing.

1 x spare casing – just for mounting if others crack, as I don't think the switch works!

2 x spare reflectors.

1 x spare Owl 10w + 6w backup unit.

6 x spare halogen bulbs, as above.

2 x 10,000mAh 7.2v (6 x 1.2v) RS battery packs.

2 x Smart bags to hold these.

2 x spare 6 x D-cell holders for the batteries.

Make no mistake!! These are F-A-R brighter and last F-A-R longer than the popular standard Smart twin halogen units and even give the expensive HID / LED brand-name lights a good run for their money with a more 'three-dimensional' light than the flat white beam of LED and HID units costing well into the £100's

Estimated at about 700-725 lumens on full whack.

Some data on XP-G at >1000mA . . . again assuming a decent heatsink you can run these things way over 1500mA . . . 1500mA turns into 450lumens . . . per LED . . . 1350 for a triple . . . will be experimenting with this as soon as I get some time and LEDS

taken from here :-

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3115908&postcount=354

Ref the XP-G cutter out of stock issue, they have R4 in stock, only max 5% less bright than the R5's . . .

Cheers Fergusd, Looks like its the XPG's then.

what driver gives 1.5amp?

Cool thread this 😀

No way on earth will a lumi halogen can handle 3 xpgs @ 1.5 amps and the gain is not worth the effort plus the extra battery draw .

if anyone is interested in have these drop me a mail

there is a leg bloke on the triple but it is still useable

Troutie, I can find a used for most all of those. Just can't find your email. Will try what I think it is.
Mike

If Mikey does not want em i'll have em.

Mikey, does this mean you don't want anything for this cutter order i'm going to put in?

BTW thanks for the link to the ebay driver Troutie. It works a treat

So is the thinking now that the XPG LEDs are the way forward & they should operate fine with the optics that Cutter sell even though they aren't 'designed' for XPGs?

it would appear that cutter now have both the XPG's and the optics for them.

so yes XPG's seem to be the way to go and you can now get specific XPG optics. Although only triples are in stock.

here

http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut781

pull down menu shows a XPG specific triple in stock

Hi, I'm very interested in this conversion but I confess all this electronic talk means nothing, I'm a mech. engineer, I like the touchy feely things.

If this conversion works (see trouts comments above about heat build up)is there anybody out there willing to increase their order quantities and purchase another set of bits for me? I'm interested in the 3 led set up, but wouldn't have a clue what I'm buying even with the links.

Would and external heat sink with veins help?

troutie is talking about the 1500ma drive in fergus's light.not the 670ma one of mine.

I can add a triple and optic onto the order if you like.

Mail me if you want in

ta

Dave

E mail in profile.

i am picking up a small resistor and switch that will allow you to drop the power to 50% or 100%, (another pointer form troutie, thanks again). This should alleviate alot of the concerns over heat build up.

Trout – why do say no way to the Lumi can? Is it the heat build up in the LEDs rather than the driver? As I understand it, if you use a bFlex driver they don't need heatsinking?

Chucky, would this PCB work for XPG's I can't find a specific board??

Am I right in thinking that the XPG's would work OK with the 670ma driver in the Lumi can with some kind of heatsink? I think I'll change my order to the XPG's if this is the case.

yes squeeky they will.

Let me know what you wnat to do

Mail me

I think I'll try the high/low mod via switched resistor too, if Chuck has success with it! I'll mostly be using the light for road commuting, which is a mixture of open country roads (plenty of airflow, lots of light = good) and London traffic (slow moving, don't need quite so much raw power). So it'd be really good to be able to switch down to lower power to reduce heat when in slow moving traffic / waiting at junctions. I actually mail-ordered a few bits from Maplin earlier, but misread the post above and ordered a 200 ohm resistor rather than 200k. Ah well, I can pop into a Maplin sometime before the Cutter stuff arrives I'm sure.

The XPGs shouldn't run any hotter than XPEs in a like for like setup (but will put out more light) so the heatsinking requirements should be the same.

Would it be possible to post a simple circuit diagram of how the resistor works to reduce the power. I guess it is a simple 3 way switch with the resistor taking load from the battery on one setting?

Poison spider

It is the leds that get hot and @1500 ma drive current there will be too much heat for the lumi can to disipate 3 XPGs will get pretty hot

one thing you want to watch for too is the xpgs add about 8 degrees beam angle to an xpe optic so your 6 degree optic which is really 12 degree will become 14 degree or 28 degree in real life so if you are wanting a spot beam stick with the XRE R2 or XPE R2