riding Trout's Cutie

trout – i sent you an email a week or so ago regarding spider eyes/helmet light, did you get it……

Eye up Chris,

Forget my request to hold back a couple of minis – after reading this thread make that a tripple cutie and a mini.

I have to say that is a very compact and aesthetically pleasing lamp unit – I must have one.

To the borrowers (of the cutie)

Can we have more beam shots please?

Cheers

LT

🙂 Toons its glow in the dark paint inside the light just for a bit of fun . Where is it going after you have given it a thrashing .

Camerone , Sorry I have not seen owt but thats not to say it has not got here please resend while I have a search for it .

Love tubs
the milky bar kid has the cutie drop him your address and give it a try

trout – resent email just now.
cheers

To somebody called Pete (i don’t have his STW username at the mo)

Cheers Toons
I wonder how many miles it has racked up so far via the postal service.

Trout I just sent you an email (well last night your your BY email) I wonder if it has disappeared?

I hope not! I want a go!!!

Trout – first ride tonight with the new DD light. Did the obligatory shine into the garden test and it it looks good.

Also did the old stare into the light to see how bright it is, i can confirm its bright.

Hopefully tonight I will see the full impact. The DD on the bars (2600 lumens) and an old D-star led light on the lid (1700 Lumens) should see me through the wyre forest ok.

remember the DD is 2600 real, measured lumens. Theoretical is 3600 lumens.

Chris, have you had a chance to build the other demo Cutie yet?

Sorry Cooie
as fast as I build them they get bought.

I have not even got one for my own bike at the moment

but now I have run out of batteries till a new delivery from smudge arrives so may just catch up and get it done this week .

Ok, no worries. I can wait. Cheers 🙂

Toon, I am Pete, so is flashes (work and home)

Pooh, getting excited as I’m after Flashy in the queue

Troutie – did you get my mail?

Troutie – and mine?

yes got em will reply when I get home tonight

Cool – sorry I just know you had problems with your mail before (we may be talking quite some time ago) 😉

still do have the odd issue Virginmedia was very shonky last week

Everyone who bought one what have you gone for the 3 or 5 level mode?

Curious as to real world runtimes experienced.

Whoever is next inline for the demo Cutie send me your address & i will pop it in the post to you.

I’m next for the Spidereyes. You wait you b*stard squirrels (just kidding, I like squirrels)………….

@bigbloke, I opted for the light with three settings but have ended up with a 5 settings one, unless I am doing it wrong.

Basically I push and hold down the on button and the light goes through 5 stages of brightness. Can anyone confirm this is correct. I assume the fith stage of brightness is the boost.

I run the light at the four level and when require boost I hold down the on button for a brief moment and the light cranks up a notch. Once finshed with boost I do the same again and the light goes back to what i think it level 4.

Anyone confirm this is corrcet method.

I am as yet to work out how to get the flashing mode as per the instructions

Mantastic……yes thats correct. To get flashing turn the unit off then push the button continuously for a few seconds the light will come on in the flashing mode which can also be cycled up and down in brightness.

I also assumed the light had 3 levels but it came with 5. I have the standard 2.6A battery.

You can also run them in the traditional bflex “duomode”, where presses of the switch alternate between low & high current settings. It’s how i have mine setup. With high current set to 2.8A & sensible use of low current setting i get about 2 hours runtime from a 2.6AH battery pack.

Oh bugger that means there will be a customer expecting five levels and only got three somewhere

for the five level. each click goes up a level to the top
press and hold and it goes back down. releasing when at the required level .

it is easy to reprogram for a triple setting. mail me if you want instructions on how .

I’d be interested in how to change between the 5 and 3 power level modes, and what the theoretical lumen outputs are for the 5 power levels.

Tried out for the first time last night, only initial impressions as was not normal ride in the woods, was out over some open hills so much of the light was being wasted shining into space. Seems very good on levels 3,4 and 5 but two things of note. Firstly it wouldn’t stay in level 5 for long due to getting warm but to be fair I wan’t riding particularly fast and it was about 15 degrees last night. Secondly I can’t see what is immediately in front of my wheel (the first two to three feet) as well as with my old hope vision 4. In all other respects however it is much better, but only when you get to levels 4 and 5. Overall impressed so far.

I agree with the above, the first 2 settings (5 levels) are only really suitable as a commuter and dont offer any real impact on an off road trail which came as a little bit of a disappointment, level 3 is fine offroad , level 4 and 5 are superb.

Chris told me that setting 4 is about 1 amp draw (equivalent I think to the high setting in 3 level mode) so it seems like a huge jump to the 3 amps on boost (level 5). I can see why grahamb has set the boost to 2.8 amps as presumably this is only very slightly less bright but doesn’t overheat quite so quickly meaning that it will stay in this highest setting for longer even when moving more slowly through the air (I was descending a steep wet grassy hill last night so wanted all the light I could get but wasn’t going very fast.) Don’t know how the setting can be changed in this way though – grahamb/troutie is it fairly easy to configure these settings at home (forgive my ignorance)?

OK its no secret the driver used is the Taskled H6flex
from http://www.taskled.com
the data sheet with all the configuration instructions is on there
it does involve lots of button presses and is easy to screw up .

messing with it will also mean possible warranty issues from the settings I send them out configured to .

mainly the thermal monitoring , switch that off at your own risk

dont confuse battery draw with led drive current .

when on the highest setting it will draw approx 2 amps from a 14.8 volt battery

I send them all out configured to 2.8 max led current as it is not possible to see the difference at 3 amps
and the battery drain is a bit better

the led drive on the 5 levels is
level 5 2800 ma
level 4 1593 ma
level 3 730 ma
level 2 220 ma
level 1 50 ma

now this doesn’t mean the lumens halve with each step as that not how leds work
and I will get realtime lumen counts for each level sometime soon .

battery draw at the five levels is
level 5 1.9 amps
level 4 1 amp
level 3 .5 amps
level 2 .15 amps
level 1 .04 amps

so with this information you will be able to work out the theoretical run time for your particular amp hour battery

real runtime will vary due to temperature the colder the less runtime you can expect

@trout – thanks for that very useful info.

I’d just add to what I said previously that the light is extremely well put together and looks and feels just as good as my hope vision 4. I’m looking forward to using it around my usual ride in the woods in a few nights time.

Flashy, you got the spider eyes yet?

Andy,

Sorry I was on holiday. I think it may be in work, I’ll have a play this week.
Email me your address. I’m guessing you are next in line

Cheers

it still with Toons, then me, then you…………

Who’s got the cutie at the moment?

Used the spiders eyes whilst out riding with toons on tuesday night, bloody awesome head light. Insanely bright!

Hi i sent the cutie over to bristol last week.

Glad you lot know whats happening cos i lost the plot ages ago 😯

I am having to ride with a normal light at the moment 😉
and only 3600 lumens

The-milkybar-kid,who to? Would like to give it a go if possible.