Smudges Lumenator Seems a good un

At last I have got my hands on one of Smudges Lumenator lights .

Wnet for a rainy ride around the first loop at Gisburn with Smudge he was using a Lumenator on the bars and a helmet light I did for him a couple of years ago .

I had the 4400 lupin Hope4 on the bars and a Spider on the helmet
some footage ( very badly filmed ) of me behind him with all lights blazing and you can see the nice pool of light the lumenator was giving out .
Dont know if this works but here is the film on dropbox

going to have a more indepth look inside later but on first inspection it is a nice little unit .
the battery is very well sealed in its rubber case and the frame bag fits real good .

the light head looks well made and assembled but will find out more when I go inside.

I went to my beamshot place for the obligatory beamshots at the MTBR settings

Looks very good out on the trail .

Strobe yes it certainly does , I am not a strobe fan as I dont like them but for the flashers out there it will suit if a tad bright .

It is small very small and as such did not move around on the bars with the rubber band mounting system unlike some of the top heavy lights which rattle their way round the bar when the rubber gets tired.

The switch light on the back was a little too bright for me and I would cover it if using on the bars

Not yet had time to do a runtime test but will do later .

All in a very nice looking and functioning trail light with a good spread and throw .

I am also testing a back light from smudge but will report on that when it has had a few rainy rides

Nice review there trout.

Couldn’t get the video to stream properly very slow unfortunately. It did open though.

Yes will have to pop it up on youtube but not had time

Update
For the Maths on full it is drawing just under 2 amps so the three hour runtime should be doable

Ohhhh goodie, bought one yesterday but couldnt find many reviews. Mainly bought as it seemed to be the same spec as the magicshine mj-880, but cheeper, likely to be built properly and a better battery coming from smudge. I don’t like the ‘new’ magicshine battery in the huge aluminum case, too bulky.

Just one comment (and this applies to all helmet mounted lights IMO) can we change the switch/back bit to permentantly red? A voltage level is a nice to have, but 99 times out of one hundred night rides are 2-3 hours and for most people and lights that means they can run them on full with occasional dipps for the roads so unless you’re planning an epic knowing the battery level is largely irelavent. Red would be more usefull as a rear light for following trafic. Basicly can you copy the exposure red-eye?

nice. i’m interested in one of these to replace my Inton U2.
ill be interested to read more about the ‘insides’ of the light

Troutie – did you get my email re. upgrading a Lumi HID can to LED?

Nothing bad to report on opening it up .

in the front it looks neat and a tidy oring seal to the front bezel
plenty of thermal glue in evidence .

in through the back door and the same oring seal so a good degree of damp proofing that end .
very tight for space and everything looks tidy and well done

the main weak spot on the bastids is the cable entry and one I was interested to see how waterproof and I was pleasantly surprised to see it had a good strain relief and an extra rubber seal too

so it should be rainproof from the evidence I have seen though I wouldnt go swimming with it .

It appears to be quite well made and I am struggling to find fault with it .

I would do away with the ridiculous strobe mode ( at least it is separate from the main user interface) and put a switchable hi power red led on the rear as thisisnotaspoon suggests

Power draw from a 7.4 volt supply is and approx runtimes
low = 0.280 amps = 23 hours
med = 0.960 amps = nearly 7 hours
hi = 1.40 amps = 4 hrs 45 mins
boost 1.85 amps = 3 hrs 30 mins

the battery status changed to blue at 7 volts in the battery
and to red at 6.4 volts
started to flash at 5.7 volts I would expext the battery protection circuit to kick in and shut down the light .

I did notice a drop in the light output when the red status kicked in and the meter backed this up with the amps .

Steve will have a look and report back .

Power draw from a 7.4 volt supply is and approx runtimes
low = 0.280 amps = 23 hours
med = 0.960 amps = nearly 7 hours
hi = 1.40 amps = 4 hrs 45 mins
boost 1.85 amps = 3 hrs 30 mins

What have I missed (am am an electrical luddite BTW)? Smudge says:

10 hours at 70% mode,
30 hours at 40% mode,
50 hours at 10% mode.

For sake of argument lets look at 70% mode (high) – why only 4.45 hrs and not the 10 hours claimed?

Just asking, becuase I wasn’t going to recharge my light for next time, but maybe I should…..

As a rough guide, how would these number equate to lumen output?

med = 0.960 amps = nearly 7 hours
hi = 1.40 amps = 4 hrs 45 mins
boost 1.85 amps = 3 hrs 30 mins

might be my power supply is fibbing or my maths is way out
so light went on at 16.00 on level 3 will report back when it goes out if I am still awake then

The ghost dog is in all your pictures.

Who and what is he, does he have to wear 8) ?

I’m inclinded to think trouties right ans smudge has made an error?

LED’s get more efficient the harder you drive them (as long as they stay cool) hence 40% of the light used 50% of the power (and doubles battery life).

So running at 70% can’t possibly be trebbling battery life.

On the nomenclature, is there any reason “boost” can’t be left on? Does it shorten battery/lamp life? Asking as I’ve a P7 and 90% of the time it’s left on full and I’ve never thought that it’s too bright.

As a rough guide, how would these number equate to lumen output?

med = 0.960 amps = nearly 7 hours
hi = 1.40 amps = 4 hrs 45 mins
boost 1.85 amps = 3 hrs 30 mins

Thats difficult to work out as there will be losses in the driver
it would need a meter in between the driver and the leds to see what amps the leds were getting .

But if they were getting the same amps as the power draw then approx lumens would be

low about 300
med about 800
hi about 1000
boost about 1400

But they may be getting more amps while the battery is full and when it gets to about 6.6 volts when it reaches the same voltage as the leds this will be when it dims a little

😛 The ghost dog is Paddy the Parsons russell terrior .
not yet got him any welding goggles

Its advertised as a 2000 lumen light.

Mind you my DX was advertised at 1400 lumen and doesn’t even compare to this.

There the on paper lumens if you ran 3 amps through the leds and could keep them below 25 c
wish I could find some of these super XMLs @ 1400 lumens but it seem the less you pay the more you get in the lupins

Boost dimming is heat protection as there is no way a light this small can keep cool at the higher drive currents

I am going to presume Smudge has been provided with the figures for the light from the manufacturer and at some point an error has been made in calculating out the run times and lumens.

Even with the figures trout is calculating it still seems a bloomin good light for the money.

Battery started at 8.4 volts. And one hour in its 7.7 volts

LED’s get more efficient the harder you drive them

No – they get less efficient. If you look at the datasheet for the XML U2, at 1A it’ll do 416 lumens, and 2A just 742 i.e. double the power, less than double the output.

Actually, it’s even worse than that, as the forward voltage increases a bit with current so doubling the current more than doubles the power.

The strobe works well if you wear a wolf mask and drop some acid. Fact.

time seems to have gone into slow motion
2 hours in and battery at 7.3 volts

Blue light on at 2 hrs 15 mins

You are going to do the same test for the next level down arn’t you? I’m more interested in the 10 hour run time…

I’ll check back in the morning.

😈

OK times up
it would seem my calcs are not too far out as the battery protection kicked in at 6 volts which is sound and what is to be expected as the cells dont like to go below 3 volts each .

total runtime was 4 hours 38 minutes on the level three or Hi as I have called it

so it would be fair to go for the other approx run times .

I have Spoken to Smudge and he did just quote the Manufacturers blurb and he is going to email them and point out their wrong calculations .

having said that they are still pretty good runtimes for the light output .
one thing not to forget though is the runtimes will be quite a bit shorter when the temp drops to freezing and below and could be 20% less when the battery is very cold .

Seems superb for the Money, really impressed by those run times.

May consider selling my Lumi HID LED conversion for one of these. 🙄

the thing is bottom line I am as pleased as a pleased thing with my Luminator

Run times are more than ample for what I need and I do not run above medium cos there is more than enough light at that setting

Highly recommended

Oh so you were testing the 70% level…

Now testing the Charge up time but suspect it will take about 6 hours 30 minutes
its real hard watching the red light dont know if I will stay awake

That’s good to know. Thought the runtimes seemed a little ambitious.

I rarely run it in full power mode as it makes little difference at off road speeds. Not tried it on the road bike yet where it might come in useful on the faster descents.

My biggest niggle is having to cycle through off mode to go down a power level.

And I’ve sorted a neat little helmet mount on my hex. Carved a lump of closed cell foam plus the O-ring and it mounts straight on. Steady as a rock, low profile and easy on/off

So 2/3 the claimed output and half the claimed runtime……

Just saying like…..

Mine arrived today, so went for my first off-road night ride in about 8 years, with the Lumenator nicely strapped to my helmet and what else can I say…….AMAZING LIGHTS.

On my commute home through Cardiff through the unlit bits, even the lowest setting is completely adequate – any higher just dazzles other cyclists coming towards me (still getting to grips with the whole ‘helmet-moving-with-my-head’ thing!).

Then I went up to Castel Coch (some local forestry with awesome singletrackage) – and didn’t see any real need to go above the ‘medium’ setting. I cranked it up to the max on a few of the downhill bits purely for testing purposes, and wow, it really lights up everything in your path!

I would say, however, the strobe is completely pointless – FAR too bright/epileptic-fit-causing to use anywhere in public. It wouldn’t be so bad if it strobed on the lowest setting, but a 2,200 lumen strobe is just ridiculous.

My biggest niggle is having to cycle through off mode to go down a power level.

Don’t you have to hold the button to turn it off? On mine you do anyway. 🙂

Don’t you have to hold the button to turn it off? On mine you do anyway.

You can hold it down to turn off on any setting, but pressing once increases the power level until it goes off and then back to the lowest. Now I just leave it on level 3.

Nice light but it looks suspiciously like an old Hope 2 that has then had been Trouted with a pair of XMLs.

You can hold it down to turn off on any setting, but pressing once increases the power level until it goes off and then back to the lowest. Now I just leave it on level 3.

That’s weird, pressing once on mine doesn’t ever switch it off, it just goes through the low-max cycle – only way I can turn it off is to hold it. Maybe it’s been tweaked – how old is yours?

My one needs the button held to turn it off.

It’s from one of the latest batches/drops.

Does bear a resemblance to the Vision 2

Hopped up Vision

Lumenator

old Vision 2

All on high