A few Stenlight questions

[ianb]

I am looking at getting a stenlight and think use on a bike would be good, but Stenlight haven't released their bike mount yet, how do other people mount them?

Have people modded them? I know there was a run of reflectors a while back from JSB, but have people put cree XR-E's in them?

Any help or guidance on this or where to look would be appreciated,

thanks, Ian

 

[bdsmchs]

I just had some of these questions answered by stenlight themselves.

I use mine for caving, so I can't help you with the bike mount. I HIGHLY recomend this lamp though. It's just amazing.

I have the JSB reflectors, and they definitely improve the quality of the beam and reduce light loss due to reflector vs. plastic optic.

As far as mods go, you can put an SSC P4 into the stenlight, but when I inquired about having stenlight themselves do the upgrade for me, this is the answer I received:

Hello Christian,

We did do P4 upgrades for a while and even build a batch of S7 lamps with
P4s. Unfortunately, we found that SSC P4s degrade alarmingly quickly when
run at 1 amp in a StenLight or when operated at modestly high
temperatures. We have also found an independent study indicating that SSC
P4 phospor degrades noticeably (resulting in color shifts and a loss of
brightness of more than 10% in under 1000 hours) even with a huge heat
sink that keeps the pad temperature at impossibly low temperatures, like
30C. So at this point we do not regard the P4 as durable enough to
recommend it despite its impressive initial brightness. Note that while
the P4 uses CREE dice, it uses a different phosphor formulation, and that
seems to be the problem.

There is some indication that a P4 might be a bit more durable if limited
to 700mA and lower temperatures, so you would be gaining run-time rather
than brightness, but even so I'm not sure I'd really trust it very far.

We've had more luck with Luxeon Rebels, which show no degradation at all
in our testing even at 1 amp and higher temperatures; and are competitive
with SSC P4s even initially. As soon as supplies of high-grade Rebels
improve we will offer upgrades to existing lamps as well as new Premium
lamps using them; but at the moment we have none available. The prices
are expected to be $280 for the Premium lamps and $60 (not including
shipping) for the upgrades of existing lamps to Premium LEDs.

Sorry we don't have a better answer at the moment, but we do expect to
have a good solution by this summer.

David C Niemi
Stensat Group LLC

 

[bdsmchs]

I also inquired about the possibility of a Cree XR-E Q5 upgrade. I knew that the Cree has a totally different packaging than the SSC and Luxeons, but I wanted to throw the question out there anyways. Here is their reply:

The Crees are not only a different footprint but a very different optical
pattern. It's conceivable we could make a Cree converter board like we
did with the Rebels, but due to its larger size it might not fit. Note
that we use different optics and change the LED-to-optic distance with the
Rebels to get a good beam pattern (the ones we use also work with Luxeon
IIIs too).

Anyway, a Cree Q5 would doubtless be pretty impressive, but I'm not sure
they can be made to work. We really should try it and see, but the Rebels
have a lot of other advantages (proven durability, size, price, color
quality, available optics) and the top grades scale up pretty high, so
that's our main focus right now.

 

[bill_n_opus]

I'm impressed with the (seemingly) honest and detailed answers from Stenlight ...

 

[bdsmchs]

I'm impressed with the (seemingly) honest and detailed answers from Stenlight ...

I was not only impressed with the answers, but the fact that I sent those questions off Sunday afternoon, expecting to hear back from them sometime on Monday. I got both responses on Sunday evening.

Not only do I absolutely love my Stenlight, but now I'm just a huge fan of the company in general. How many companies would offer to mod your light for you?

 

[PeLu]

....SSC P4 phospor degrades noticeably (resulting in color shifts and a loss of brightness of more than 10% in under 1000 hours) even with a huge heat
sink....There is some indication that a P4 might be a bit more durable if limited
to 700mA and lower temperatures,

Just as an information: With a good heat sink there seems to be no real problem in real life. Normal caving use also includes that you do not run the LEDs on full power most of the time. There are Sucrions which have several 100s of hours of use and they do not show any colour shift (it is easy to compare).

Unfortunately a good heat sink adds some weight and bulk, naturally.

Besides that, when used on a bicycle, the additional airflow is a big benefit.

A holder should be easy to make with one of the usual helmet holders and a hose clamp or even cable tie. I have never done it, as I hate a circular light distribution for bicycling.

How many companies would offer to mod your light for you?

It is cavers making lights for cavers. Among them it is not so rare.

 

[ianb]

Thankyou for the interesting replies, from the sounds of it, I should buy one and see how it fairs before worrying about upgrading. I thought it would be good to have a small waterproof light for trail riding, I hadn't thought I guess it would be annoying to other road users if I used it on the highway.

Does anybody know what the reflectors were that JSP used, are they a modified Mcr11 or something?

Anyway thanks for the input,

Ian

 

[Boricle]

A few people here at CPF ended up with the following bike mount for the Stenlight from the original group buy a few years back (maybe two years?):

http://proliteii.com/Products/mounts.htm

(second item down the page)

It is actually for a different (competing) headlamp - but it is for miners lamp style blade mounts, so works just as well.

However, there website hasn't been updated for a *loooong* time, and Inner Mountain Outfitters didn't seem to stock them any more. You might be able to contact them and see if they have any stock left around (though I wouldn't be too hopeful).

* shrug *

They also made the headlamp straps that we use (until Stenlight finally come out with one) without a helmet.

The design consisted of two parts - 1 a clamp mount on the frame of the bike, and 2 - an inset that fitted the blade of the stenlight. looking closely at the inset piece, it is actually just two plastic clips from headlamp bands that are used for holding the straps in place in a very strong C shape (almost a complete oval), with the retainer section (the actual oval) cut off.

I use the stenlight primarily for cycling in three different configurations, and I really like it - though admit that it is probably not quite as good for dedicated cycling as a HID solution.

* - Using twofish blocks strapped to my helmet.
* - Wearing a very loose fitted headband under my helmet (though this isn't too great)
* - Handlebar mount

I also do a bit of camping, walking and night running - so the flexibility is good for me (as are the adjustable light levels).

Boricle