My trusty DIY Halogen, developed over the past 10 years, has seen better days, the light is distinctly yellow compared with my riding chums' LEDs and I was running out of light on the faster descents earlier.
I'm after a quick list of a good driver and LEDs combo for building a light that will give me decent light for a fast descent and use a lower-current for general trail riding.
Have soldering iron and not afraid to use it.
Cheers.
*Opens can of worms*
I am not fully up to date myself but a bit of it is subjective
p7 / mce multi die led is the brightest but optics are not great if yo want a tight spot beam - I have one tho and it a lot of light. This is the LED in the bastid light
xpg is the most efficient - I think this is what troutie and luminous are using 350 lumen each led - plenty of choice of optics
I think if yo want a really tight beam tho you are better with n earlier cree led - xre - but they are less bright / efficient
I would use a kit from cutter.au for ease
Power supply I have used buckpucks -simple cheap and reliable but I really like the [url= http://www.taskled.com/ ]Taskled b flex [/url]for iits flexibilty and build in overheat cutout - heat being the enemy of leds
There is a blackcat ( i think) driver that (again I think) troutie uses - the maker of this pops up on here sometime but I have no first hand knowledge.
[url= http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut757 ]I think this is the kit I would use if I were doing another light[/url]
You need to watch out for the voltages when deciding buck or boost driver but the quad xpg with teh b flex would be my choice if you have a high enough battery voltage - a triple if not.
I've been trying to work out the same thing, its pretty tricky as there are just hundreds of threads on here and mtbr, with massively varying timestamps and countries of relevance. Just need to distill down to UK-relevant contemporary info, but its hard. Batteries seem to be the biggest problem. I really want to diy but the further I get bogged down in going through threads, the louder magicshine calls....
There isnt realy a holy grail of the diy lights world .
all depends on what you want from the experience
as you can build up to a budget or down to a budget
You may have seen the build going on on here well that is probably the easiest and lowest cost diy for a decent light that has enough power to shame some of the mainstream lights if not in beauty but in light power.
The MS would be a quick fix for a good light
Thank you TandemJeremy, very helpful.
There are indeed hundreds of posts about the subject, but difficult to extract just the useful facts.
Ideally, I'm looking for a run-time of about 3hrs and enough light for a fast downhill when required. I favour helmet mount with a narrow beam.