Tricycle Assassin
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2015
- Messages
- 7
New here on the forums, have been lurking past few weeks trying to absorb all the wisdom (a lot like drinking from a firehose).
Anyhow, I'm looking to build a couple 3-up lights to use for bicycling. Most of the commercially made bike lights are overpriced and can't accept off the shelf 18650s without some modding.
So I'm looking for a suitable design solution that will run a 3 up xpg or xpe (red) with carclo optics. Prefer a smaller sized light since I'm going for fairly floody. As far as a driver, I'm liking the taskled L-flex driver, primarily due to it's bike-friendly firmware.
Goal is ~800L out the front and 1.5h runtime, ~200L out the back and 1.5L runtime. Desire for configurable flash/pulse modes since the standard strobe and beacon modes IMO aren't that great based on my current experience.
So a few questions I've not been able to get figured out.
In terms of lumens per amp of current would I be better with a single XML2 for the front or a 3-up xpg? This is basically a runtime issue for me, but I like to have full brightness for about the 90 minutes I typically ride in the dark.
For my 3-up head and taillight configurations, is is really feasible to run something like that off a single 18650? I'm not opposed to a 26650 or other chubby battery if that's what's needed to make this work. The goal is simply a bike light that doesn't need to be tethered to an external battery pack and that I can easily swap cells when they get discharged.
I realize the Vf is radically different from a white xpg and a red xpe. Also, this would be an unprotected 3500 mAH quality (panasonic, sanyo, samsung) cell.
The taskled driver is on a 20mm board. Are there smaller drivers with similar capability? I'd be probably more interested in a 7135 based driver like the Qlite (smaller form factor), but the firmware packages I've seen (admittedly limited) don't have a lot of strobe/blinky options suitable for cycling.
Speaking of firmware, are there any bike-friendly firmware packages I should look into?
Finally, what about hosts? If I could make it all fit, a Convoy S2 or S5 or S6 would be ideal. Again, that's assuming I can find a 17mm driver with multiple strobe/blinky options as well as steady modes. If that won't work, then I'm at a loss for a tube light that would work with 26xxx cells.
If this provides any context, I'm looking to take the Design Shine dual 3-up design and scale it down to a single, self-contained single 3-up design.
I expect I'll have more questions, so please have mercy on a clueless newb. If there are any places where some of this information is located already, links to previously plowed ground would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance for the privilege of accessing the collective wisdom of the Wizards of the IlLUMENati (see what I did there?).
Anyhow, I'm looking to build a couple 3-up lights to use for bicycling. Most of the commercially made bike lights are overpriced and can't accept off the shelf 18650s without some modding.
So I'm looking for a suitable design solution that will run a 3 up xpg or xpe (red) with carclo optics. Prefer a smaller sized light since I'm going for fairly floody. As far as a driver, I'm liking the taskled L-flex driver, primarily due to it's bike-friendly firmware.
Goal is ~800L out the front and 1.5h runtime, ~200L out the back and 1.5L runtime. Desire for configurable flash/pulse modes since the standard strobe and beacon modes IMO aren't that great based on my current experience.
So a few questions I've not been able to get figured out.
In terms of lumens per amp of current would I be better with a single XML2 for the front or a 3-up xpg? This is basically a runtime issue for me, but I like to have full brightness for about the 90 minutes I typically ride in the dark.
For my 3-up head and taillight configurations, is is really feasible to run something like that off a single 18650? I'm not opposed to a 26650 or other chubby battery if that's what's needed to make this work. The goal is simply a bike light that doesn't need to be tethered to an external battery pack and that I can easily swap cells when they get discharged.
I realize the Vf is radically different from a white xpg and a red xpe. Also, this would be an unprotected 3500 mAH quality (panasonic, sanyo, samsung) cell.
The taskled driver is on a 20mm board. Are there smaller drivers with similar capability? I'd be probably more interested in a 7135 based driver like the Qlite (smaller form factor), but the firmware packages I've seen (admittedly limited) don't have a lot of strobe/blinky options suitable for cycling.
Speaking of firmware, are there any bike-friendly firmware packages I should look into?
Finally, what about hosts? If I could make it all fit, a Convoy S2 or S5 or S6 would be ideal. Again, that's assuming I can find a 17mm driver with multiple strobe/blinky options as well as steady modes. If that won't work, then I'm at a loss for a tube light that would work with 26xxx cells.
If this provides any context, I'm looking to take the Design Shine dual 3-up design and scale it down to a single, self-contained single 3-up design.
I expect I'll have more questions, so please have mercy on a clueless newb. If there are any places where some of this information is located already, links to previously plowed ground would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance for the privilege of accessing the collective wisdom of the Wizards of the IlLUMENati (see what I did there?).