Hi There,

Last year I purchased some cheap Chinese night riding lights and didn’t really expect them to be too great, but for the price I was surprised.

After proving that I used the lights I’d decided that I would complement the current ones with a better quality lamp for helmet mounting.

But in the mean time, my two current lamps have suddenly started lasting for a very short periods of time.

Both of them on high power will last 10 minutes, about an hour on medium power. Now the actual lamps are pretty good, so I’m thinking of instead of throwing the whole lot out, I’ll either get new chargers or battery packs for the current lamps (Plus a better helmet lamp and battery).

From the following symptoms, does anyone have an idea what the problem could be…or faced the same issue.

When I put them on for charge, both charges glow with the orange lamp, but after 10-15 minutes, they glow green, now this can’t mean they are fully charged in such a short period of time….unless the batteries are fried. I’ll re-plug them into the charger and the same thing.

Is my problem, duff batteries, or

Duff chargers?

Any ideas?

I had a similar problem a few weeks ago. I took the cover off the pack and inside was a small PCB connected to the 4 cells. With my meter I found no power coming from the wires on the PCB to the plug but all 4 cells had voltage. I have disconnected the PCB and soldered the plug directly to the cells. Obviously now I have to be carefull how long I use the lights as I could over discharge the pack. As soon as it dims I change to a spare pack. You may just have a duff cell but you’ll need to test with a meter.

Sounds like the batteries have died. You can buy replacement Chinese battery packs for £8 each off ebay, so it’s not worth messing about with the old ones.
Alternatively a decent quality battery will cost about £25, and then you’ll probably want a more reliable charger which will be £12 or so.

Thanks for the input guys.

@Robbieh, yep, noticed that PCB and wondered what it was about.

@ MarkLG, yeah, think keep hold of the lamps and just match up with new batteries (decent ones this time).

Looking at getting:

http://www.magicshine.co.uk/front-bike-light-kits/magicshine-mj-872-kit.html

So I’ll get another standard battery pack to go with the lamps I already have.

That’s old LED technology, not a bad light but expensive compared to what upto date kit there is available now

Try having a scan though this
The £170 lights are expensive compared to what you’ve linked to, but are better quality all round and will last longer.. something to consider, the cheap chinese lights (solarstorm x2 for around £35) bought from a UK seller on ebay are still better than output than the MJ-872 and you can hassle UK seller for a decent battery (or a decent battery can be had for as little as £30).

Take a look at Bike Lights UK

The Fluxient ones are good value and come with 2 years warranty from the manufacturer. I’ve got one of the single LEDs on the way.

Thanks for the heads up chaps, all good stuff.