Car style High / Low , but beam angle not brightness for e-bike

Hi all.

I have ben building e-bikes for about 4 years now and constantly come up against the problem of a high low beam lamp for my bikes.

Many bicycle lights do tend to have a high low power option, but nothing for beam angle as in a car or motorcycle.

Current solution is two or three lamps on the bike , a low beam pointing down and wide , a mid range and a long spot..but that is three lamps, extra wiring, etc .

So I am considering building my own single unit, multi LED lamp. I envisaged an LED or two within a reflector unit, both LED's in a different place within the reflector unit so switching one on/off changes the beam angle...in exactly the same manner as a standard two filament car / motorcycle headlamp.

The bike runs on LiPo, 24s4p battery pack, so power is not an issue, , but the reflector issue is what is stumping me.

So has any one has either seen either commercial suitable reflector units that are capable of this for an LED lamp, or any one else on here done a similar project.

Have tried various searches on the forum , even using Google advance search, but to no avail...What search terms to use is a major obstacle, as we all have experienced before.

Any one have any ideas for parts ? or a different way to achieve this?

many thanks
Neil ( Also NeilP on the Endless Sphere e-vehicle forums)

It's a nice idea. I'm assuming that the normal beam would comply to the German regulations. Would the high beam just be the same beam but elevated slightly?

Custom reflector design strikes me as something with some significant hurdles to overcome. It can't be a simple matter, or more bike lights would have well designed beams. Once you have a good design, you have to come up with tooling to mold the plastic and then deposit aluminum vapor on the plastic to create the reflective surface. These would seem to be processes only available from a business that does this on a large scale.

My guess is that a hobbyist's best chance for adjustable beams is to retrofit a LED with multiple segments like the Cree MC-E into an existing light. Powering half of the LEDs at a time would shift the beam a bit. Whether the resulting beams would be acceptable is a different matter. Changing the size of the light source will change the beams shape. I think people have tried this in the past... I don't recall anyone thinking that this was an ideal solution though.

There is a consortium of German companies that have adopted this method for automotive headlights. They are doing it with a lot more precision/resolution, though. The LED has 256 segments, and different groups of segments are powered up as a way to change the beam pattern and direction.
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/ne...es-step-imaging-led-matrix-headlamps-2014-10/

Steve K said:

It's a nice idea. I'm assuming that the normal beam would comply to the German regulations.

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Hi, thanks for the reply.

I am not actually in Germany..but as I am new here, I can not yet see or edit my profile to change what must be the default..or a mistake when I first setup my account...a few years back..i had forgotten I had registered here, till I came here to day looking for 18650 battery info.

Your reply is not the answer I want to hear:mecry:

Steve K said:

Would the high beam just be the same beam but elevated slightly?

Click to expand...

Had thought more that the high beam would be an additional beam, so you still keep the low level lighting in front of you for pothole spotting, My e-bike is 40 mph capable so I need good lights.

Steve K said:

Custom reflector design strikes me as something with some significant hurdles to overcome.

Click to expand...

Yes, tell me about it !! been thinking about this for a few years now

Steve K said:

It can't be a simple matter, or more bike lights would have well designed beams.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily, even simple things that could be incorporated in to bike lights have not in general been done. When I say that I am thinking of remote on/off or high low power switch on a fly lead that can be fitted to the handle bars near your hand. that would be a very simple matter, but I am yet to see a bike light where that has been implemented.

I had hoped I was not treading new ground here, and someone eels had already tried similar

Steve K said:

My guess is that a hobbyist's best chance for adjustable beams is to retrofit a LED with multiple segments like the Cree MC-E into an existing light. Powering half of the LEDs at a time would shift the beam a bit. Whether the resulting beams would be acceptable is a different matter. Changing the size of the light source will change the beams shape. I think people have tried this in the past... I don't recall anyone thinking that this was an ideal solution though.

Click to expand...

Or a large spot reflector unit, with a selection of LED's inside it...... a long range spot reflector with bits cut out of it to fit another LED or three at different parts of the reflector. Fitted in such places to cause the beam to point more downwards. yes the cut outs may impact on the long spot beam , but only experimentation would see how much this cause an issue.

Thanks for the link will take a look.

Looks like there is one available.

A review been posted on here about it