Odessa Slick
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2009
- Messages
- 2
Hi all….
I need advice on building myself a front light for riding my MTB off road. The benchmark I'm looking to hit would be a Hope that runs 4 x LED's from a 7.4v Li-ion battery pack. It claims 960 lumens which looking at the LED flashlight market seems reasonable. Unfortunately I'm in no way an expert on flashlights or LED technology, which is why I'm posting this plea for advice and suggestions.
I have a friend who's an engineer with some great kit so I'm capable of building the housings for the light and the battery pack. What I need is advice on what to build. My intension is to use my LED front I already have for the road, and then switch on the new light when needed. This is so I can get as much light and flood without offending other road users. Most existing high power bike lights have dip and main beam for this purpose but if it makes life easier for me I'll use 2 lights.
My electronic skills are fair so I don't mind building from scratch if someone could list me components to buy although one avenue I was toying with was to buy the lamp unit for a Spiderfire x550 with the 5 x Cree Q5 LED's. Thinking if I then bought an aluminum torch at the right diameter, I could use it to build from. My only problem with this is that I'm not sure what I'd be buying. Looking at screen shots of the unit you can see the spring on the back so would that mean that wiring it to 2 x 18650 batteries would provide my light?
Basically, my knowledge is very limited in this area but I'm hoping as with all other forums I belong to that anyone who knows a way to help me build what I need will pass on their wisdom happily.
To summarize, I need a light as bright as I can get with flood having a slight priority over spot although I'm guessing at the 1000 lumen mark distance won't be an issue. My unit will need to be not much larger than a 50-60mm flashlight head. The battery pack needs to be housed separately so I'll need to be able to plug it into the light unit and be able to recharge it. Being able to have the light dipped for the road would be great but not a necessity as stated.
Please help me in any way you can people as I need this light but refuse to pay over 300 hard earned British pounds for it.
Thanks in advance
I need advice on building myself a front light for riding my MTB off road. The benchmark I'm looking to hit would be a Hope that runs 4 x LED's from a 7.4v Li-ion battery pack. It claims 960 lumens which looking at the LED flashlight market seems reasonable. Unfortunately I'm in no way an expert on flashlights or LED technology, which is why I'm posting this plea for advice and suggestions.
I have a friend who's an engineer with some great kit so I'm capable of building the housings for the light and the battery pack. What I need is advice on what to build. My intension is to use my LED front I already have for the road, and then switch on the new light when needed. This is so I can get as much light and flood without offending other road users. Most existing high power bike lights have dip and main beam for this purpose but if it makes life easier for me I'll use 2 lights.
My electronic skills are fair so I don't mind building from scratch if someone could list me components to buy although one avenue I was toying with was to buy the lamp unit for a Spiderfire x550 with the 5 x Cree Q5 LED's. Thinking if I then bought an aluminum torch at the right diameter, I could use it to build from. My only problem with this is that I'm not sure what I'd be buying. Looking at screen shots of the unit you can see the spring on the back so would that mean that wiring it to 2 x 18650 batteries would provide my light?
Basically, my knowledge is very limited in this area but I'm hoping as with all other forums I belong to that anyone who knows a way to help me build what I need will pass on their wisdom happily.
To summarize, I need a light as bright as I can get with flood having a slight priority over spot although I'm guessing at the 1000 lumen mark distance won't be an issue. My unit will need to be not much larger than a 50-60mm flashlight head. The battery pack needs to be housed separately so I'll need to be able to plug it into the light unit and be able to recharge it. Being able to have the light dipped for the road would be great but not a necessity as stated.
Please help me in any way you can people as I need this light but refuse to pay over 300 hard earned British pounds for it.
Thanks in advance