Replace Planet Bike MR11 Halogen with LED?

First, thanks for the tips on the Diamond LED replacement for my 3D mag. I'm looking forward to getting that installed.

I ride a bike quite a bit and the best bike light I have currently is a Planet Bike Alias SC. It's a 15 watt "Spectra" halogen light with a "smart circuit" that allows soft start and allows me to choose three brightness levels plus a flash mode. The halogen bulb is an MR11 style bulb.

It's powered by a 6v NiMH 4.5ah rechargeable pack.

Now I'm interested in looking at replacing the halogen bulb with something better, perhaps an LED. I'm not particularly interested in any permanent mods to the light itself at this point. Does anyone have any recommendations for MR11 LED replacements? I'd ideally like the same throw/flood coverage as before, or perhaps better throw with same/better flood, along with greater runtime.

Thanks!

Hi,

Welcome to CPF! I do quite a bit of night riding myself. Night's the best time to ride during summers here in Fresno. I use a NiteRider Road Rat with their great NiteRider 16 LED tail light. I have recently started using my PT EOS headlamp as well. I really feel that you can not get enough light for night riding. I'd love to have an HID, but $$$ is a priority.

Your Planet Bike light is a good one. Why are you looking to upgrade? If by "better" you mean more durable, or longer lasting lamp, or something other than brighter, you might be able to find an MR11 drop-in LED to fit your needs. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that your 15w MR11 incandescent will probably be brighter than just about any LED drop-in replacement (without mods). Maybe there is someone around here that is more knowledgeable in this area than me that could point you to what you are looking for.

Happy riding,
Ken

Thanks for the welcome!

I like the light a lot myself. It was a pretty good deal when I got it as my first high end bike light, and I'm happy with the performance. My primary motivation for any upgrade would be to maintain the same performance while getting longer runtime, if possible.

I'd like an HID too, but yeah, that's some serious money. I've got an EOS myself, and it's a pretty decent headlamp for night riding in the city. I especially like being able to direct it at things not directly in the path of my handlebar-mounted Alias.

Most of the MR11 LED bulbs I've seen on the web seem to require 12VDC and I'm not sure how that'd work with my 6VDC system.

I'd probably even be game for trying to hook up a 3 Watt Luxeon to an MR11 pinout and see what that does for me.

Thanks for the input.

benh said:

Now I'm interested in looking at replacing the halogen bulb with something better, perhaps an LED.
Thanks!

Click to expand...

Both LEDs and halogen lights develop a lot of heat. The heat from the halogen tends to be radiated out with the light.
The LED heat wants to stay home.
As a result you usually need to add a heat sink to a LED and this might be a problem with the light you have.

If it is a *good* halogen, chances are adding a LED would give you a poorer result.