Troutie very kindly sent me his prototype XML cutie to have a play with, here are a few notes from last nights fist ride
first impressions out of the box, the light unit is very very light weight even though compared to my Liberator it’s quite big, the battery however is over twice the size of the Libs battery, but then this is a prototype. it fitted well to the side of my headtube and didn’t interfere with pedalling and stayed put over rough ground 2011-08-20_17-17-39_10.jpg by rOcKeTdOgUk, on Flickr
it gives off a white/slightly yellow light which seems easier on the eye than more “bluer” lights i’ve used (i am however a little colourblind!) the beam is quite wide without much fade at the edges, the Liberator does qive a wider spread at the periferal sides of vision, but then is is a totally different LED layout (round v rectangular)
for wide open fields and roads the low beam is more than enough, in the woods medium gave excellent vision ahead with plenty of distance to react to trail obstacles with out the “tunnel vision” you get with some lights, the boost beam is pretty insane, lighting up the woods like daylight and i’ll be honest was a bit too much and took away some of the thrill and psuedo danger of night riding, nice to have but i’d say 95% of the time you just wouldn’t use it
i was out around 2.5hrs playing with all the levels and the cutie was on for the whole time and showed no sign of losing power (i’m sure Troutie can give you the burn times
edit:full will go for about 2 hours
medium will go for about 8 hours
low will go for 33 hours
to conclude, it’s an awesome light, it’ll tackle any offroad riding with ease with plenty of battery life for a decent length ride in the dark and if you were just usung it to commute it would ensure you were seen by other road users and give you plenty of spread to pic up kerbs and verges on unlit roads, my only minuse is the size of the battery but as this might not be the battery that comes with the light as standard it’s a minor quibble.
oh and one more thing, this rabbit was alive before it got caught in the Cutie’s beam…and when we checked it, it was cooked! 😉 cutie killed a bunny by rOcKeTdOgUk, on Flickr
Rocketdog.
If you had to choose one light for nightrides would you choose the liberator or the cutie ?
Wondering if its worth holding out for the cutie.
Cheers
Trout … I’m fairly new t’forumworld … This may be a naive question and the lights look really great, will these be available for purchase (or am I missing something obvious?).
What happened was when the MMbop frames were being sold cheap I got another one and built up a bike for the missus but she only rides rarely
so I have the use of that one as well as the mega .
new housings fresh from the machine shop . the first protos .
A bit of a retro look which I am testing before having a run made .
so easy to build that there will be a self build kit coming soon .
as well as some built up
I realise it is being particularly picky but one of the things i really liked about your prototype was the bar mount! Although you can’t really see it in rocketdogs pic it has your logo on it which is a neat touch and really set the lights apart as one of yours.
I could see reasoning behind it if it was sold as a diy kit :-
* possibility of the light being built not being to your standards
* depending on construction it could make the housing hellish expensive
however if you go down the route of selling complete builds i think it would be a great shame to loose that bit of brand identity.
Also in my mind it just looks a more secure solution for fixing the light to the bar.
Price I am waiting for a cost from the machine shop but expect it to be around the Libs price but will need an endurance battery if using full for any length of time
Lib measured at 1700 lumens
triple xml was measured at 2800 lumens
Those spider eyes look like a DIY light thread I’ve been watching on mtbr for the last 4 months. Looks as though both will be the perfect helmet light.