PaulRivers

Ha, I remember your other posts, so just posting something for consideration.

1. If you're going to get the dynamo version anyways, just get a dynamo front wheel already! (I don't actually how much an external lith-ion battery pack costs - how much have you seen? I know my Dinotte ones were $50-$70 for a replacement. That's a large chunk of the way to just buying a good dynamo front wheel, which is around either $135 or $215 depending on Sanyo vs Shimano front hub. I assume there's cheaper lith-ion battery packs?).

2. You've probably done the research, but is that actually possible? I know there's something weird about a dynamo putting out AC power, not DC power like a battery does, just wanted to mention it, not sure if one can simply hook a battery up directly to the battery light.

3. The Ixon IQ Premium does have a front port for charging the light without taking the batteries out. I don't have the charger yet, but I will have it soon. Unfortunately - it's not micro usb. It's one of the round styles that comes out of a wall plug. I could let you know what the wall plug says it outputs when I get it. I could also see if the light stays on if it's plugged in (could be useful), or if it turns off when it's plugged in and charging (useless in that case).

4. I know you've mentioned they sell the more expensive 90 lux version where is has a separate head unit and battery pack. I know you mentioned the battery pack is nimh, though. Don't know if you can order just the light head with the newer version? It's overpriced at $268 (in my opinion) with the nimh battery pack included, wonder what the cost for just the light head would be. At least that would definitely be designed to take battery power.

5. Unfortunately (wait, what am I saying? fortunately it's finally spring!) I cannot test how long nimh batteries would last in the very cold because it's no longer cold here in Minnesota :-), but keep in mind that the light is supposed to run for 5 hours on it's AA nimh batteries. Even if you lost 50% of the their capacity in the cold, they would still run for 2.5 hours, or 2 hours assuming the runtime is optimistic. Sanyo eneloops are rated around 2,000mah capacity, the Sanyo Enelopp XX's are 2,500 I believe.

I know lith-ion are "better" for cold weather, but per a couple of threads I found in a quick search -

#092 - I don't get much battery life in my transmitters when they are cold. What kind of batteries should I be using this winter?

Cold weather AA NiMH performance

Like this posts says this -
It is finished discharging and my IR thermometer said the freezer temperature was 6.7 F, last time I checked it said 5F. The 24 hour frozen eneloop AA discharged while inside the freezer to 0.9 volts had 1390mah capacity. That is almost 85% of the one I discharged last night at room temperature(1637mah). I'd say at .5C discharge, that is very good performance, especially when sanyo only claims the old eneloops to be good to -10C and my freezer is essentially -20C. In five or so minutes, the at rest open circuit voltage recovered to what is in the picture.

This is the info from the other link -
At room temperature:
NiMh 4:02
Lithium 6:01

At 5 deg F cold soaked for one hour.
NiMh 2:52
Lithium 5:45

At 5 deg F cold soaked for 16 hours:
NiMh 2:46
Lithium 3:19

So at 6.7 degrees Fahrenheit, they still retain more than 50% of their capacity. Going from a 4 hour capacity at room temps to a 2:46 hour capacity at 5 degrees Fahrenheit still gives you far more than the 2 hours of runtime you were supposed to get (but definitely didn't get) out of the Phillips Saferide light you tried. :-)