@bigdawg when you click on that UK sellers profile it says “Member since: 23-Apr-13
Location: China” LOL

@daveR i’ve got all mine from http://www.fasttech.com/product/1285800-solarstorm-x2-cree-xm-l-u2-4-mode-2000-lumen-led-b

They’re obviously China based but I note that in the returns info they say to return to their UK location so I expect that’s how it’s done.

@clubber that looks a bit to like my XML-T6 which i’m out of love with due to poor beam spread.

@felt X2 on the helmet x3 on the bars. x2 is more than adequate though, i’m just getting lumen greed now.

How soon has it generally taken for people to get their Solarstorms from the UK seller?
Probably RM or whoever being crap but was expecting mine on Weds…

Ordered mine from the UK seller on Tuesday morning and arrived this morning. Posted first class recorded. Not tried it yet but it is very small.

christ i’m making an arse of this

be warned one of those ebay links above doesn’t include a battery.

£33 deal extreme does.

dx

Just out of curiosity I hooked mine up to a multimeter to see what sort of power they’re using.
Current draw for a single XML-T6 was 0.2A on low and 0.8A on high.
For the 2x U2 it’s 0.2A, 0.9A and 2.0A on low, med and high.

So medium is using the same sort of power as high beam on the T6, which is good for around 2.5 hrs on the standard battery. You’ll get less than an hour on high setting on the 2x U2, so if you just want to leave it on high all the time it’s probably worth investing in some better quality batteries.

Does anyone know if I should be able to use my T6 charger on my X2 battery?
My X2 came with a charger which has an American plug and I don’t want to shed out for an adapter. 🙄

Sorry slightly off topic.

Adapters are £1 available from all good pound shops. Most shaver adapters will work. It’ll also add a fuse which will help if it does go pop.

I used my light on the trails for the fist time tonight. After about an hour and three quarters it cut out. The switch was still in the green mode and I had been switching between the medium and high settings to conserve power.

Should I put this down to a first run/ charge glitch or is there something wrong with the light unit or the battery?

I’ve had it on the charger for about half an hour now and the lights are working. I will give it a full charge / discharge cycle and see what the run time is like. Our night rides are usually between two and three hours, so an extra more reliable battery may be the way forward.

That suggests somewhere around 1500 lumens on high, assuming the driver is reasonably efficient.

What would I be looking for in terms of battery? I don’t have a notion about electronics

would work and you need
1. Correct voltage [ or near enough]
2. More Amp/Hr = more power = longer burn time
3. waterproof or easy enough to do this
4. Method of attaching to bike
5. Connector to match battery pack to light connector

@neiloxford the official source of the solarstorm and proper site it seems, nice find!

this does look well engineered

http://www.solarstorm.hk/productview.asp?id=42&classid=006

If you are looking at rc batteries on hobby king, most of them will be lipo so 2s are 7.4v so is closest to the 8v li-ion batteries that come with the hk lights.

C rating is to do with the draw they cam handle is higher the c rating the more amps they can handle efficiently iirc

You can get a 5000mah 2s lipo for just over a tenner. Only downside is you will need a decent balance charger that would set you back £30+

So not sure it would be worth it by the time you have to buy the charger change the connectors find a safe way of mounting it…etc

Had a quick skim through the thread, so apologies if already been asked, but is the best option, if you want a battery and charger that you would feel comfortable leaving charging overnight/unattended, is to get someone like smudge to supply that side of things? Or are there any ‘premium’ offerings from China/HK?

2200mah seems to be a reasonable price and they come in various voltages, C ratings as I’ve learnt are voltage ratings

Every days a school day
.
I use to be into RC and the batts I think you are referring to are LIPOs, if so the problem with these is they are fragile as they are not in a proper hard case like the 18650 cell packs. You can buy cells from Torchy on ebay and make your own packs by soldering 4 cells together in a 2 parallel then 2 series formation. I recently made a couple of packs up from cells from a cordless drill I had when it packed up. The LION packs had 5 18650 Samsung cells in each pack so I took them apart and re-assembled them.

That solarstorm website ‘only’ quotes 1500 lumens as the max output for the x2

I’ve been on the fence waiting to make a decision around these, they do look good, especially for the price.

I’ve been making do with a fluxient U2 mini on my bars, which I bought for commuting, and a sunwayman v20c as my helmet light (which I had already), gives me over 1000 real lumens combined and let’s me carry back up batteries that I can use in ether torch

Charged my battery up then connected light and left it on full power. It lasted just over an hour and light got very hot. Not impressed with battery life. I will recharge battery and try again. I know sometimes it can take a few charges for battery to be at its best, but i did expect better out of the box

No i didnt, but didnt expect it to get that hot. It would still get very hot even running it on the bike at night though.