The PSA first:
Recently I happened to notice that Lezyne have started making StVZO-compliant lights, and for some reason the single-cell 80 lux/290 lumen version is currently a slightly silly £13 on Amazon. So I bought one.
I’ve not have a chance to take it round some proper dark lanes yet, but a quick spin up the road suggests that it’s a lot brighter than a B&M Cyo Premium (which is odd given that they’re both nominally 80 lux). Unfortunately Lezyne’s battery life claims appear to be even more of a fantasy than Garmin’s: it’s supposed to do 2h15m in its brightest mode; on my first test I got something between 1h15 and 1h30, making the claimed life somewhere between 50 and 80% greater than my real one (I found at least one online review that suggests I’m not alone). Given that my only previous experience of Lezyne lights is buying one mid-ride and having it fail before the end of the same ride, I’m unimpressed with them to say the least.
But… it’s £13 (cheap enough that I’ve ordered a second), it sticks plenty of photons on the tarmac, the barely usable rubber strap which attaches it to the bars can be replaced easily enough, and once you take all the internals out there’s lots of room for even the most incompetent tinkerer (ie me) to fit a bunch of diodes and whatnots in there.
Which means there’s the potential for fixing the problem of crap battery life by not using a battery. I’ve got the bits to make one of the Pilom circuits—I was planning on doing this some time ago with an old Lumicycle lamp but didn’t think I could stuff everything into the small housing. I just need to bite the bullet and do some hacking.
Anyone done it before and got any pearls of wisdom before I ruin a (not quite) perfectly functional light? I found one example online but that’s the handiwork of an electronics professional, and I was kind of hoping for hard-learned lessons (or reassurance) from ignorant imbeciles such as myself 🙂
