Please tell me what you think of these lights...Would it make sense?
- Thread starter SAVAGESAM
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kwarwick
Newly Enlightened
For a car, sure! For a bike, not so much given you'd need one hell of a battery pack to drive those.
SAVAGESAM
Newly Enlightened
So one of those 18V drill batteries is a no go?
If it can deliver a handfull of amperes it should power these suckers. . . but for how long?
Look at the specks for the S4100 - 4 diodes (most likely four P7 or MC-E, it does not say, but those are the only 10W diodes I know of). Specs says that it draws 4.8 A of current (that 4.8 A number is most likely at 12V, since most of the customers will probably run it from a car battery).
So how many amperes from a 18V battery? Depends on how the driver circuit is designed and its efficiency. (The driver will be ramping anything in between 9-50 volts down to about 3.7 volts, which is what the LED sees). I don't know squat about driver circuits, so your guestimate is as good as mine . . . Could be 4.8A, is probably a little less. My tips is guestimating a 4.8A current draw from an 18V battery. It is probably not too wrong, and will probably err on the conservative side.
At the back of my head, a 12V (or 18V) 5 Ah (ampere hours) battery should be able to power this light for about one hour (5 amperes continiously for one hour). But is the battery really capable of delivering 5A in CONTINIUOS USE? I don't know . . .
If you ask in the battery section of this forum you will get more informed answers about how many amperes an 18V drill battery actually can deliver in continiuous use. You probably want to ask about battery chemistry too . . . (Modern drill batteries come with different kind of chemistries, with different performance and prices).
SAVAGESAM
Newly Enlightened
OK, thanks. I got a price from a vendor in Sacramento. Too much for me.
Other than the price,
The emitter is an SSC P7, running at 750Ma. The driver is a buck-boost, fully internal, and operates from 9 to 50 volts. The optic is SSC's own spot optic for the P7. It sounds like the spot optic is a 20deg fwhm, and it's TIR, so the efficiency ought to be over 90%.
They use Deutsch connectors, so compatiblity is not an issue. They're going to be selling a battery pack for it next month, and there's no reason at all not to build your own pack.
IF you don't want to build your own light head, it's a build-the-pack and plug it in solution.
Eamon
The emitter is an SSC P7, running at 750Ma. The driver is a buck-boost, fully internal, and operates from 9 to 50 volts. The optic is SSC's own spot optic for the P7. It sounds like the spot optic is a 20deg fwhm, and it's TIR, so the efficiency ought to be over 90%.
They use Deutsch connectors, so compatiblity is not an issue. They're going to be selling a battery pack for it next month, and there's no reason at all not to build your own pack.
IF you don't want to build your own light head, it's a build-the-pack and plug it in solution.
Eamon
SAVAGESAM
Newly Enlightened
Ok, You got me feelin like it can be done with haveing to lug twenty pounds of batteries around. Please tell me how you would go about building the batt. pack. Thank you for putting up with my questions.
Alas,
I cannot help you there, I am a dynamo-powered road guy. Their battery pack will be available in a month or so, at a MAP of 119.00, I think he said it would be 2.5 AH or thereabouts, for a 3hr runtime.
Beyond that, the calculations are simple enough, It just isn't something I've ever done.
Eamon
I cannot help you there, I am a dynamo-powered road guy. Their battery pack will be available in a month or so, at a MAP of 119.00, I think he said it would be 2.5 AH or thereabouts, for a 3hr runtime.
Beyond that, the calculations are simple enough, It just isn't something I've ever done.
Eamon
If you are talking about the S1100 light: http://www.visionxoffroad.com/led/s1100/ (one P7) it draws 0.75 ampere at 12V. That is easy. You could do that with 10-15 rechargeable AA's or basically ANY battery pack (drill or whatever) that is within the 9-50 volt range. Divide the ampere hour rating by 0.75, substract a little "real life performance factor" and you get a runtime estimate. (Example: 2.5ah battery / 0.75A current draw = 3.3 hours, or ~3 hours run time).
The multi-led solutions (s4100, s6100 or the led x-mitter arrays) are in a totally different league. They require 4-5 amperes or more. There are plenty of batteries that can do that, but not all - and for how long? And how heavy?
These items looks nice, but I guess the price of x-vision gear is pretty high (~$500 range?). If I were to spend that much money on a bicycle light I would certainly check out high-end bike lights.
SAVAGESAM
Newly Enlightened
Ok, thank you.
