Lumis head will struggle to upgrade as the XRE leds stop at the R2
so they will need a rethink for an upgrade .

having said that the R2 is a great led

The only way to make a packet is to go to the east for manufacter
as that is where all our old machine tools are residing now

joemarshall – Member

I think a lot of people will only buy expensive lights – because there are £200 lights and £50 lights, they think only the expensive light must be a proper light.

Joe

Ok I have a Lupine Edison 5 which I agree is not very reliable (HID) and also a Betty something which seems pretty reliable so far. Me and my riding mates have had various lights over the past years and indeed some are very happy with there DX thingy torches and "bastid" lights.

Thing is if i can afford to buy expensive lights which are brighter than cheaper £50 lights………so what!!

Some people can afford to ride on custom made IF titanium crown deluxe jobbies that don't go any faster than your aluminium/steel whatever you ride………who cares??

You earn your own cash, you're only here once so why not spend it on something you enjoy using??

There are cheaper alternatives that appear to be as good as the more expensive options. For example I've got a clone of a Lupine Tesla 5 rrp £325 (its from DX and is called a Magicshine – £50). I've also got 2 DX SSC P7 torches (around £35 each plus chargers and batteries). All are great lights – but and its a really BIG but – they have all (yes all) been unreliable.

My newest – the Magicshine – started playing up tonight going down a single track. Same problem as the 5 mode torch had – it changes mode or turns off every time you hit a bump. Not the end of the world if you're in town etc but coming down a mountain its a big deal. Fortunatly I've learnt my lesson with the torches – I never ride with just one light.

On tonights ride there were 10 folks – nearly everyone had 2 lights. Roughly 20 lights in total. Mostly LEDs, mostly expensive. Types were Ay-Ups, Lupines, Hopes various HIDs and a halogen. I was the only one with a light failure.

Tomorrow I've got to go and figure out what the problem is and probably bodge a repair as for me its not worth my while sending it back to Hong Kong under warranty (I'll actually enjoy the challenge of fixing / soldering it and will post some tips for any others in the same boat).

IMO – Sure anything can fail but on balance you get what you pay for. And if you buy cheap – buy 2 to be safe.

"the internet has a lot to answer for, it is/will be the death of British manufacture"

What total rubbish, british manufacturing was ****ed long before we all got the internet and started buying stuff direct from abroad. People like to blame all sorts of things for it but this is a new one. Traditionally cause comes before effect 😉

IMO – Sure anything can fail but on balance you get what you pay for. And if you buy cheap – buy 2 to be safe.

I work on the principle that anything can fail, but when the cheap lights fail, you either fix em (usually dead easy with such simple lights), warranty them, or pay another £50. When people's lupines fail, if you're not lucky and covered by the warranty for that particular occurrence (say you crash onto the switch) they have to pay £100 even for what should be the simplest part (funny switch unit). Even if they are under warranty, you're talking a couple of weeks wait while they get fixed, which is a pain, whereas with the torches I've never seen anything not cured by just tightening up some internal part that was loose when it was first bought, and even if you had to re-wire it completely, you could do it in half an hour.

My lumicycles were great mind – anything broke on those even out of warranty, it was dead cheap and quick to get them fixed. Fantastic design. Only got rid of them because they weren't very bright and they were a bit big and heavy (oh and cos the battery & charger died, and it'd cost a fortune for a new one), and a cheap torch was a better replacement than what they were offering at the time.

Joe

Bah, LEDS! I'm a single speeder. I use carbide lights.

🙂

I am just in the process of replacing my Lumi halogen bulbs with the LED units that Lumi are selling for retro-fitting into the halogen cans. Costing about £40 and appears to be going to produce about the same amount fo light that the halogens did, but with a 20 hour battery life. I'm mainly commuting on them, and if I go out on the mtb at night it's by myself so no arm's race effect, so they'll always be under-powered by modern standards, but the spares back-up and the fact that Lumi are still there at the end of the phone, re-conditioning batteries and keeping my rather neat system ticking over gently is really very cheering. 🙂

I've just replaced my 5 year old HID (one of the trailtech ones that were all the rage back in the day) with a Airbike from On one. Cost was £135, my HID was £240 ish IIRC, used it for the first time last night, and wasn't going any slower in the singletrack, so all is good, plus it doesn't flicker like my old HID used to.

I've gone from a reasonably heafty battery/ light set-up to a pretty small and light set up, that lasts as long, and in real terms has cost less. OK I could have saved even more money, by buying from dealextreme, but I needed my light now rather than in 10 weeks time, and if anything goes wrong, then I'm dealing with a UK company with a decent reputation, and not some faceless internet trader the other side of the world.

Costing about £40 and appears to be going to produce about the same amount fo light that the halogens did

The lumicycle 1W LED spot ones?

They will be about a 3W halogen equivalent. Be alright for road riding maybe (although I don't like fast descents on unlit roads using such a dim light), but blimey you're going to be riding by moonlight off road? Isn't that a massive downgrade from the halogens? I'd keep at least one halogen bulb in for off road.

Joe

Noted Joe. I'll experiment. I've not tried off-road or a side-by-side comparison yet. 🙂

trout – Member

Lumis head will struggle to upgrade as the XRE leds stop at the R2
so they will need a rethink for an upgrade .

Couldn't they just fit the 35mm Xpgs in the Lumi head? Can't see no reason as long as they change the optic too?

When I spoke to Lumi about their lights earlier this year they said upgrades would be available as / when new LED's came out. No boffin but would have thought it's a new PCB, LED's and optic. Driver, switch etc. stay the same?

Somewhere in Trout's thread on his new light he details exactly where the costs are in his light, and as it's easily upgradeable by me, just by unsoldering and replacing the LEDs when new spec ones come out, I really don't mind paying what Trout asks. I have a DX Bike light which is astonishing value, and a SSC P7 torch as well, but I want a real high power one but I don't want to spend more than neccessary. The battery is often the really expensive bit, Smudge's battery for Trout's light is £70. The cost of Lupine lights is way too much, IMHO, but the likes of Hope I think are reasonable, given developement costs, wages, profit, etc. Trouties or Luminous' homebrew lights are perfect for the likes of readers on this forum, who understand something about homebrew lights, whereas the commercial lights are always going to have a market in riders who want and are willing to pay for a quality light from small manufacturers but who never ever go on forums like the weirdo's who inhabit this one. Horses, as they say, for courses.

Davegr, I reckon the mr11 pcb "Cutter-XPGMR11T" and cute optic "Cute-3-XP Triple XPE Optic" would be all you need! There are even some mr11 quad pcb's appearing on the cutter site too! 😀