I’ll go first.

Burn time on standard battery
1 hour 15 mins on med/high

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Waiting on an email from Olly Boyd

Next.

Roughly an hour of use last night, mixed use with most on medium, then low, then high. Three lights showing by the end of the ride

Twenty minutes at the most last night on full, it’s a pity because they were good.

2 1/2 hours on a mix of modes and no flashing indicator (using two sets).

Anyone doing anything to waterproof the battery? Was thinking of getting some Scotchweld 2216 on it anywhere that looks slightly exposed

I was thinkng of using sugru for waterproofing

Anyone doing anything to waterproof the battery?

I wrapped them in gaffer tape.

I have an old battery for a hid light. How do I know if the voltage and amps (the hid battery is 11.1v 4000mAh) are ok to run on the solarstorm and if I am changing the connectors how do I know which way to set up the connections. Can I fry the light if I experiment before I fit it and test which way lights the led?

My understanding is the battery is 7.4 v
so you stand a good chance of hurting it with 11.1 v

yes the cheaper driver boards do not have any reverse polarity protection
so again a good chance of destruction
you need a multimeter and check polarity of the battery .

Anyone doing anything to waterproof the battery? Was thinking of getting some Scotchweld 2216 on it anywhere that looks slightly exposed

A plastic sandwich bag or a balloon.

I used mine for commuting, 20 minutes on low and I was down to 2 green lights, another 10 and I was down to 1. Pretty pish really but I’ll get in touch with smudge for a new battery. Didn’t expect much for the money, the light itself is great though.

Ive only been walking the dog with mine so far but 20-30 minutes every night for 2 weeks so far on a mix of settings and still showing 2 bars so I guess I got a good battery ?

Still waiting on some prices from Ollie though as the light head seems great

Great light, naff batteries. I’ve got 3 of the standard issue batteries from various lights and they vary a lot in capacity, between 2 and 3Ah.
If you’re out for a couple of hours you need to use high power sparingly on the standard battery. Budget for a decent battery if you want to run full power a lot.
On full power combined with a single XML on the helmet it’s a great setup.

I got 2 1/4 hours on Tuesday night, kept on full power until it went completely out. That was on the standard battery. I also get different light readings if I disconnect the power and then plug straight back in….almost as a reminder that its cheap shite and Chinese

2 batteries, one from the Solar Storm, one from a Amazon 3 cree light. Two tests, both batteries around the 1 hour mark on full power. From the other thread that puts their capacities at 2000-2500mAh. Got one more battery to test, from a cheapie bought 2 years ago. Amazon 3 cree does 2 hours on full BTW, but obviously isn’t as bright. Think I’ll be going Amazon on the bars and solar storm on the lid to use only when required.

I had around 3 hours on mine, i did try and see how long on the high setting i could get, but for some reason the light reduces the setting to medium/low and won’t switch up to high, is this an overheating issue, as the casing does run quite hot?

From what i saw it is decent enough though, on the low it’ll be a decent commuter light, can’t say much for high as after a while i didn’t notice what setting it was on between medium and high.

Good lights do this, once a temperature is exceeded they back down the current to protect the LEDs. I don’t know whether the solar storm does this, it’d be good if it did.

I have been running mine for 3-3.5 hrs, 95% of the time at low and rest at med/high on a regular basis. No problems so far, but do expect the batteries to soon start loosing its charge.

argree – you’re right, these lights do get very hot if left on full power. It looks like there’s some sort of overheat protection in the driver which shuts down the power to a lower setting when the light gets too hot.
This would explain why some users are getting long run times on the standard batteries on the high settings – the kit batteries aren’t good enough to run for 2hrs+ on high that some people are reporting.

Yeah, i thought that, same thing with my old lupine wilma 6, it will dim to control the temperature, still for 30 quid it’s a great light, and will be used in conjunction with the wilma, so one in the bag and one on the bar should give me a good amount of light and time, the wilma is over 6 years old now, so the battery will be down quite a bit, so again, for 30 quid this is a lot cheaper than getting a new battery for that one!

Results are in, 3rd battery lasted >2hrs :-o. On the same basis as above that puts their capacity at 4000-5000mAh. This pack is 2yrs old and from a deal extreme ‘900 lumen’ light. However, the light output at the end was definitely lower than a charged battery, but the light was clock cold so it wasn’t an over temperature thing. Perhaps under voltage protection on the new cells?

daveh – If the light was cold then it wasn’t running at full power. It’s likely that it ran on full power for a while and dropped down to med when it got hot. On full power mine is too hot to touch. 😯
The light will output the same power even when the battery is getting low – the driver just ramps up the current draw to compensate for the reduced voltage. If your light output had dropped off then it was due to heat, rather than the batteries. The undervoltage protection just switches off the battery when the voltage drops to around 5.5v.

I’ve just tested a few batteries on my RC battery charger and the best one is only 3Ah, with the others around 2.5Ah. I’ve made up a battery using some fairly cheap Samsung cells for the X2, which holds around 4.8Ah, which is enough for me to leave it on high for most of my evening ride.

Agree with all that you say – however! All tests were performed in the same manner, basically sat in front of a fan to keep the LEDs cool, so they didn’t get too hot and back down to protect themselves. Putting a new battery pack on restored the light output to full brightness (and heat), putting the ‘3rd’ battery pack on again dropped the light output and again it remained cold. It cycled ok thru the 3 output settings, albeit with low output. Perhaps the cells still had voltage (no low voltage cut off) but were unable to deliver the current, hence the lack of light output (and heat).

I suspect there’s something not quite right with that battery.
The protection circuit should kick in before the light dims, so the light cuts out a few minutes after the low battery warning comes up on the light. If the battery voltage gets too low then it’ll be permanently damaged and won’t recharge properly, which is why they have the built in cut off.
Or it could be that the battery just can’t deliver enough current to get full power out of the light. (More likely if it’s a couple of years old).

op I’d get a decent 26550 battery pack which should give you a better runtime