Xeccon Spiker 1207 Bicycle Light Review – Holy bicycle light, Batman!

subwoofer

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Xeccon have been working hard on moving forward bicycle light design. Their recent Spiker lights (this, the 1207, and another model the 1206 reviewed separately) incorporate innovation and make significant improvements on earlier lights.

Dark nights beware, there is a new shaped-crusader lighting the way.

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Initial Impressions:

Opening the unassuming outer cardboard box revealed a pleasant surprise with the very well presented storage case. Something you might only expect of more expensive lights.

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The Spiker 1207's storage case

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This initial impression is maintained by the comprehensive collection of mounting options and good quality of the components.

The Spiker 1207 itself has been creating a great many other initial impressions. This is the first bicycle light that, on my review test rides, has inspired so many comments and exclamations from other riders and passers-by "Wow, fantastic!", "That is SO bright!", "What is that?!".



What is in the box:

The Spiker 1207 includes a well-appointed kit, and this is obvious from first opening the storage case.

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Laid out the kit of parts consists of the Spiker 1207 light unit, battery pack, mains charger, handlebar clamp-mount, handlebar block and band mount, head/helmet mount, cap/clip mount, cable tidy strap, extension cord and instructions.

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Taking a closer look and looking inside:

The Spiker 1207 has taken the basic form required by a twin LED casing and tweaked it to add a little styling. Although not officially affiliated with the inspiration of its final shape the light does stand out with its recognisable silhouette.

The back of the light unit has an elongated rubber switch pad with an 'alien' look to it, sitting on top of the two tone anodising of the main casing.

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Looking into the relatively shallow depths of the textured reflectors, you can see the two XM-L LEDs.

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The glass lenses have glow in the dark o-rings and are secured by the front plate held in place by two hex bolts

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The Spiker logo

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Turning the light unit over shows the standard clip which locks into the handlebar clamp mount. This is attached with a single M4 screw which allows the user to remove this clip and replace it with the block-n-band mount or the adjustable cap clip.

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Here the light is clipped into the clamp mount

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The other mounting options (starting top left and going clockwise) are the head/helmet band, block mount, the mounting bar that clips onto the head band and the adjustable cap clip (allowing the light to fit onto the peak of a baseball cap).

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The switch is illuminated to indicate the battery is connected and the state of charge. The green illumination shows the battery pack has a good level of charge.

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Modes and User Interface:

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The Spiker 1207 has three output modes which are simply accessed by clicking the power switch and come on in the order of Maximum, Standard and Strobe.

The illuminated switch also serves to provide information to the user about the state of charge:

-When you first attach the fully charged battery the switch will light up green.
-Switching on the light leaves the green light showing as long as the battery has plenty of charge.
-Once the charge level of the battery drops, the switch illumination changes to blue.
-As the battery level drops further, the main beam flashes three times and the switch illumination turns to red.
-With continued use, as the battery level drops further still, the main beam will flash three times and the switch starts to flash the red light.
-Once the lowest charge level indication is reached, the main beam will maintain its output until the battery is fully depleted and then it will cut off to protect the battery pack from over discharge.



Batteries and output:

The Spiker uses a Xeccon battery pack consisting of 6 18650 cells in 3P 2S configuration (8.4V pack 6600mAh). Xeccon appear to have been using the same connectors and battery pack specifications (apart from overall capacity) since the Xeccon S14, and the packs from the S14 and Spiker 1206 are compatible with the 1207.


To measure actual output, I built an integrating sphere. The sensor is a photo-diode restricted to visible light only (so Infra-Red and Ultra-Violet will not register). This was chosen as our eyes can only use the visible wavelengths of light so this is generally the only useful output. The integrating sphere was calibrated using 12 different reference sources and taking an average of the factor used to convert the measured voltage output to Lumens. Output figures are quoted as ANSI lumens where the measurement is made 30s after turning on the specified output level. Initial figures when first switching on are always higher, but all quoted measurements are ANSI.

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Please note, all quoted lumen figures are from a DIY integrating sphere, and although every effort is made to give as accurate a result as possible, they should be taken as an estimate only. The results can be used to compare outputs in this review and others I have published.



Spiker 1207I.S. measured ANSI output LumensPWM frequency (Hz)
Maximum1070N/A
Standard376172

The Strobe runs at a rate that is not manic, but grabs attention 2.85Hz

Starting with a freshly charged battery pack, the Spiker 1207 has the following runtime graph on maximum output.

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The initial 1000 lumen output (as achieved according to ANSI standards) drops to solid and steady 800 lumens for the rest of the runtime. The couple of glitches in the trace are the warning flashes described in the user interface section.

The fully charged battery pack will give you around 3 hours and 20 minutes at 800 lumens output.



The beam

To show the quality of the Spiker 1207 beam I'd like to start with a beamshot of the Spiker 1206. The 1206 has a beam which is typical of most single XM-L bicycle lights. This beam has good throw and reasonable spill light. (The Spiker 1206 has a unique automatic output level, something like automatic car headlights and will be reviewed seperately)

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Now the Spiker 1207's beam, taken with the same exposure settings as the previous shot. There is more outer spill light near the front tyre, but the outstanding feature of this beam is the fantastically smooth spread of light across the entire beam, and yet there is plenty of power to light up the trail well into the distance.

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What it is really like to use…

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Shown mounted side by side with the Spiker 1206. The 1207's mount has just enough rubber spacers to grip a standard 25mm handlebar and has plenty of capacity for oversized bars as well

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The clamp mount's screw needed to be tightened more than shown here to not move on bumpy trails, and on really bumpy sections this mount did rattle a little bit due to the slide on clip having some flexibility, however it did stay put. The block-n-band type of mount may be quieter, but the clamp mount stays put and allows for directional adjustment of the beam.

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The battery pack supplied with this review sample has now been updated following my feedback to Xeccon during testing. As supplied the pack did not have enough of the EVA foam to pad it at all from the cross-bar meaning it would rattle and slide about during the ride. I used some draft excluder strip to improve this, and Xeccon have now added more EVA foam to the pack.

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As an alternative, Xeccon have told me that they can offer customers the neoprene battery holder as supplied with the Spiker 1206 instead of the plastic case version of the battery depending on your preference. This is shown here near the steering tube.

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Even though the Spiker 1207 is outputting a true sustained 800lm output, during testing it has never suffered from any overheating. The dual lens light head design results in two 400lm lights which have easily dissipated the heat generated. In the runtime test, a small USB fan was running, and with this the temperature of the light head never exceeded 35°C.

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Night time riding on completely unlit trails with this light has been a pleasure. The spread of light makes it easy to see well ahead and makes negotiating bends easier than with many other handlebar mounted lights, whose smaller hotspots lead to blind spots on the trail.

One should always have at least one more light, ideally a head-lamp, when riding totally unlit trails (I ride with a minimum of three lights and spare batteries), and even with the Spiker's low battery warning, and subsequent critical battery warning, the low battery protection can still plunge you into complete darkness when it shuts down the light. However, what it does give you as a trade off, is a regulated output maintaining the full 800lm for the entire runtime.

This light has been turning a lot of heads long before they can see what it is. Around town, the full 800lm is too much really and not fair to subject lines of traffic to. The strobe is a fantastic attention grabber and has had vehicles acting very cautiously around me. As the strobe runs at full output, which again means this can be almost too much, but will stop the 'sorry didn't see you mate' excuse all too many drivers use.

Side by side with a car, the Spiker 1207's beam appears brighter than the car's headlights. No longer does the bicycle rider have to hope their feeble flickering light can be seen by other road users, the Spiker 1207 puts the rider on an equal footing and completely opens up unlit trails for exploration at speed.

The Spiker 1207's styling may be a matter of taste, but like it or hate it, what the 1207 does is to perform!

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Spiker 1207 lighting the way, and I was last seen heading…? (there is a 'big' clue in the photo)


Test sample was provided by Xeccon for review.
 
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Has anyone opened the light to see the inside? From the outside pictures I understand the PSU board is mounted behind the leds through the front opening, so there is no solid wall behind the leds for cooling, but rather ALU pills stuck into the red casing. This is not good. How is the efficiency and the temperature of the leds?
 
Have anyone reviewd any other Xeccon lights system for bike?

Thanks


Huge unnecessary quote of post one deleted - Norm
 
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Have anyone reviewd any other Xeccon lights system for bike?

Thanks

A quick search on CPF will reveal that the answer is yes. You could also follow the links in my signature to a list reviews.
 
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