Solar Storm X2 – Mid term report

Much appreciated. Mine’s still in t’post frmo China and could land any time this year according to the tracking!

Can’t wait to stick “Short Circuit Johnny 5” on my bars!

Well i finally got to use my solarstorm X2 the other night – I ordered one from China, got sick of waiting so got another from Croydon. I also got a fluxient magicshine battery and a XML T6 light for the helmet. All purchased having read and followed links on this very forum.

Im no expert in night riding, and im not one for long epics either, or going out in the pissing rain! so for a 2 or 3hr blast of a frosy evening as an excuse to go the boozer, this set up is pretty bang on. Both lights performed very well, the X2 only went down to 2 bars on the indicator just as i was arriving home. I didnt keep it on full beam tho, in fact rarely needed it on full tilt at all, just stuck it on for the sake of it. I tossed the 2pin plug that came with the Chinese as ive got chargers for the other two. The T6 was on full whack however, plus it stayed on a bit longer while i gave the bike a quick hose down when i got back. I think the black X2 looks pretty cool on my atlas stealth bars, the fluxient battery has solid straps for securing to my frame and the T6 cable is really long so the battery can sit in my pack without any restrictions.

All in all, for what i need them for ive got three decent lights and a pile of batteries for circa £100. Effing great.

jaffejoffer I agree totally effing great light for £57 all in with a fluxient battery and as UK charger, awesome burn time you’d be nuts to spend anymore.

bit gutted the China one is red though…

Update with mine.

I’ve been using my magic shine charger to charge the original solar storm battery and having great results.

US to only run for 50mims max on high, so far done 2 50min rides and is in need of a charge now.

Had all three of mins out last night (2 riders) and one konked out after around 70mins on medium. 2 of the 3 weren’t 100% charged when we headed out but they would have been very nearly there. Will get them all charged properly and see how it goes next time.

Also, turns out that the charger I had that was noisier was the one missing the capacitor. Probably good that I binned that one.

And finally, left them hanging up in the kitchen to dry off. 45mins later one suddenly goes (from ‘off’) into strobe mode! Mrs L nearly had a heart attack 😀 Unfortunately this may mean that the lamp unit might not cope too well with a Scottish winter, time will tell

Anyone know if these will work with a Smudge light battery?

I see torchy now has SSx2 beam shots and comment on his bike light database.

link

Anyone know if these will work with a Smudge light battery?

Mine does, well it works with the battery from this one.

Looks like my ss battery has packed in – got about 8 rides out of it, ca. 20 hrs.
Failed on a ride by cutting out intermittently – you could unplug and reconnect the battery and it would come on again, then die (battery wasn’t hot at all). Won’t charge at all now – green light on the charger but nae power in the battery.
Just thought I’d post as an extra data point – I’ll prob get one of the batteries referenced above from torchy.

got to say ditching the stock battery is pretty par for the course – Ive got the smudge battery and the 4×18650 case – the smudge battery is better just because its more compact but when it starts raining ill use the battery case – only problam Ive had with that though is its just a bit too big for flat top batteries, but nothing a couple of bits of silverfoil doesnt cure.

Would this work?

Or can someone link to a better option for a battery for the Solar storm?

http://www.bikelightsuk.com/batteries/magicshine_mj6038_4400_mah_standard_battery_P604.html

My battery is still performing really well – get 4+ hours on medium and it coped well with 2hrs of mixed hi/med use – dropping just one indicator near the end of the ride. Really impressed with the light over all.

My Joystick on the other hand is going back to Wiggle with a faulty switch 🙁

I bought a Solarstorm for a test and found it was putting out well under 1000 lumens so clearly something wasn’t quite right based on feedback here.

I contacted the seller to ask about it and he contacted the factory. The response was ‘Actually if you need top quality headlight, you should by Fenix headlight, thanks’. 😯

scandal42, yes that battery will work with the SSx2. I have been using this one as it had Samsung batteries and I was fed up of replacing the cheaper batteries http://www.bikelightsuk.com/batteries/magicshine_mj6030_samsung_5600mah_rechargeable_battery_P592.html

I’ve not actually used the battery that came with the SS (or the charger for that matter)

Mine is going well and the original battery’s proved… alright, I suppose, decent for a spare but not really very useful for a full ride (especially as I don’t find the lower power modes that useful).

But still, I am going back to my MJ872 I think, for the powerful flood and marginally less range, and general higher quality. Will need to do a ride with both to decide. But that’s not too harsh a criticism, the 872 is a £80 light after all.

Cheers superfli

Looking to spend no more than 40 – 50 really including a battery that actually works.

Any other recommendations people?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Solarstorm-X2-6100mAh-waterproof-battery-pack-box-Panasonic-Keeppower-inside-/121225450273?pt=UK_SportGoods_CyclAcces_RL&hash=item1c39999321

Happy with mine. Now using it as a helmet light. Get about 2 hours on it at varying brightness depending where I am on the ride. Charge it at work from flat to charged in about 2 hours. For the price I’d say it’s good.

Lamp is good battery or charger is the weak link. Not getting much juice out of “charged” batteries…
Need to see if the other chargers in garage will do rthe trick before buying batteries

Mine packed up after 3 rides.. was great up to that point. Battery wasnt too bad. Light itself was good. First the left hand Led switched off, then the right one the next day..
Sent it back for repair/replacement so we’ll see what they come up with I guess..

So the general consensus is spend £13 on a light, £35 on a battery & £10 on a charger while waiting about 6 weeks for the light to come from China. Or you could spend £2 more and buy a twin XML oriole from Torchy?

while waiting about 6 weeks for the light to come from China.

one or two days from UK ebay sellers

And one or two days to get the whole lot from Torchy, where you know what you’re getting? As I’m sure you can tell I’m not seeing the amazing bargain here. 😉

I think you will want a decent sized battery so you can run the X2 on max all the time.

I have a Gloworm X2 (1150 proper lumens) and bought the SS X2 head unit for comparison.

The SS X2 light is a little whiter but is not as bright, so maybe pushing 1000 lumens.

The medium mode on the Gloworm X2 is brighter than the medium on the SS X2 and is much more useful, and is what I ride with mostly.

At max mode and with a decent helmet light the SS X2 seems decent.

Note that torchy’s picture makes it look less floody than mine appears to be.

But torchy’s pictures also make the Fluxient mini torch look better than the lower powered Exposure Joystick, but in reality the Joystick is a better helmet light.

Or you could spend £2 more and buy a twin XML oriole from Torchy?

Yes, but from his own site he admit it’s not as bright as the SSC2, & the Oriole’s an ugly lump of metal that I wouldn’t want on my head (unlike the SSX2). If you buy a SSX2 from a UK based ebay seller, you ‘should’ have exactly the same come back for faulty parts, as Torchy, at a much cheaper price (assuming everything works, or is replaced by the seller if it isn’t). It’s a risk though, and lots of ppl are willing to take it, other aren’t.