ItsJustMe

They certainly appear to have improved a lot since the first reviews I saw in April. I had my first ride in complete darkness and rain this morning, and I must say that I am very happy with it. It puts out as much light as my HID did. I guess it's always possible that the light will fail on me in some way but it looked pretty clean and well built when I pulled mine apart.

funbob

I took it on two rides totaling 2.5 hours before recharging it and the light showed no signs of dimming and the status LED was still green. I have no doubt that it'll get 3 hours of run time easily in high mode.

ItsJustMe

I charged mine up and then ran it until it quit. 3 hours, 5 minutes. It will probably get a little better after "exercising" the battery for a few charges. I plan to test it again this weekend (because the low battery indicator apparently has to "learn" the battery, like the indicators in laptop computers do).

Also I plan to test the light with the battery in the freezer at 0*F, because a lot of my light usage happens with the battery in cold temps. I'm going to test it once popping it in the freezer and running it for 50 minutes, then turning it off, letting it warm up, repeating (this simulates my usage if I bring the battery in at night), and also putting the thing fully charged in, letting it cool for 2 hours, then test the run time. This will test my usage if I leave the battery on the bike at night.

tennisplyr3

You might want to use a digital thermometer for monitor the exact temperature -- if that's important to you I mean. Some freezers run colder than 0 F to ensure that everything placed in there freezes.

ItsJustMe

I will, of course, use a digital remote-read thermometer in the freezer. Right now I'm doing a multi-day test - Charged Wednesday, 40 minutes thursday, friday and today. Tonight I'm going to run it dead and see if I still got somewhere around 3 hours of runtime even though I didn't use all the juice at once right after charging.

I'll probably do the cold test next weekend; I don't have the time in one night to top off the battery and then monitor a full run-down to zero.

GeoMan

Greetings all and thanks for your support.

More Magicshines will arrive this week (ETA 9/2/2009).

BTW, we'll have "Y" cables and helmet mounts within about 2 weeks.

Every improvement we've mentioned to Magicshine has been met with enthusiasm and they've done them all.

Ride on!

Geo

ItsJustMe

I just tried a more extended test; I charged my Magicshine on Wednesday night, ran it 40 minutes Thursday, Friday and Monday mornings, then 40 minutes Monday afternoon, brought it into the house and it ran another 10 minutes (in front of a fan) before shutting off. So it appears that you get about 3:10 whether you charge it and use it right away, or use it over the course of several days.

I'll do the freezer test this weekend; this is important to me because I really need the light in the winter. In fact my freezer doesn't go down nearly cold enough for a real test; it only goes to 0*F and most winters I ride at least a few days at -10 and have ridden as low as -25. I'll be curious to see if I need to top the battery up every day at those temps.

Not the Slowest

Bring the light to your local grocer and ask a favor. The frozen food back storage room should do the trick.

Then again the stick the pack inside your your jersey pocket with a jacket over it works if the cord is long enough.

Not the Slowest

UMMM, Why the Y cable?
Will two lights run off the one battery?
If so what would run time be?
Would cables be long enough for head and bars with the Y
or just double head?

Robert

ItsJustMe

I did some more testing of the light; put it on an amp meter. I've added the numbers to my review page at https://johnridley.livejournal.com/266955.html

Long story short: lamp draws 1.46 amps from the battery on high, only 0.5 amps on low. High gets 3:10 runtime, so low should give nearly 9 hours. I'm guessing 6 on strobe.

The pilot light in the back only draws 5.6 mA when the unit is off, so leaving it on for 24 hours should only kill 6 minutes of runtime. Not too bad, and I think I'll take the runtime hit rather than incurring all the extra wear of plugging and unplugging the battery pack an extra couple hundred times a year. Still, I'd rather that it didn't have a pilot light on when it was off.

seeker333

Thanks very much for all the effort you put into that review. It's one of the most complete I've seen on the Magicshine. You ought to get a rebate from geoman.

I'm not surprised the light pulls only ~1500ma; hardly no one is building P7 lights with a driver regulating at the optimum 2800ma, which is required for the light to produce the mythical "900 lumens". They do this because they figure the resulting heat will damage the light. I believe you could drive it at 3A without problems as long as it's operating only when moving, to provide adequate cooling.

Take a look at the monster enclosures some of the DIYers over at mtbr build to handle the heat. A few of them test their lights on the bench to ensure adequate static cooling (worst case). I pointed out that moving 10mph has a dramatic effect on the the heat transfer - they hate hearing that after all that work and forum-wanking.

https://forums.mtbr.com/forumdisplay.php?f=124

I guesstimate the Magicshine probably produces light in the 300-400 lumen range (not purely a guess,see https://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...d.php?t=229135 ). This is still adequate lighting for most bicyclists. I'm more concerned about the beam pattern and optical anomalies of the light. I've had 3 DX P7s - one works like a charm and the other 2 barely work at all, and their output was very inferior. I have a ShiningBeam PLI with MCE emitter and it makes a huge dark donut hole) a not uncommon characteristic of mce lights), plus cuts off at 3.55v, instead of claimed 2.7v, thus reducing usable battery life in half.

I ordered a MS; I hope mine looks as good as your garage door beam shot. I was inspired by your youtube video to order a 140R taillight too. I've been wanting one for a long time.

ItsJustMe

I measured at the battery. That is NOT the right place to measure to estimate LED output, I was measuring there to estimate run time.

Current at the LED is certainly much higher, but I don't want to tear my light apart and unsolder stuff to measure it. I may get that brave eventually.

The controller is stepping 1.5 amps at 7.4 volts down to the drive voltage of the P7, which I think is 3.3 volts. Assuming that the driver is fairly efficient, it actually should be driving it at pretty close to 3 amps.

tarwheel 

Thanks for all of the info. You've convinced me to order one.

zoste

Me, too. Supposed to be in stock tomorrow...

love2pedal.com

Thanks for the info---I just ordered one too based on the info in this forum thread.

I currently have a Cygolite Trion (self-contained 600 lumens) and will post a comparison once I have both side to side.

Dan

seeker333

Yes, you have to break solder joint (or wire lead) past driver to measure current at LED. I assumed you had done this, and that the MS was regulated with a cheap DX flashlight style regulator, and was not actually 2400ma as specified.

https://www.geomangear.com/index.php?...roducts_id=138

# Lighting Modes: High Mode @ 900 lumens >> Low Mode @ 500 lumens >> SOS Mode (flash)
# Circuitry: Digital Regulated 2400mA Current Output
# Brightness: 900 lumens maximum brightness (manufacturer rated)

Nominal Vf for P7 is 3.6v, 4.2v max. I believe the emitter was engineered with 18650 lithium cell characteristics in mind.

I doubt stepping down 2S2P 6.8-8.4v down to 3.6v is very efficient. With all these drivers, the further apart on voltage, the lower the efficiency.

If it is in fact regulated at 2400ma, then the output from led should be ~770 lumen, based on interpretation of the chart included in SSC's P7 product spec (pdf download):

https://www.acriche.com/en/product/prd/zpowerLEDp7.asp

The optics (reflector, lens) diminish output significantly, so perhaps at best case the MS produces 600 lumen, which is still very high output for an LED.

When I get my MS I'll execute my most stringent test, eyeballing it on the road at 25mph.

ItsJustMe

It should be. Heck, I've built step-down switching regulators myself out of just an op-amp, an inductor, a capacitor and a MOSFET that ran well over 90% efficient. I could draw 3 amps out of it to run my HID and it didn't even get warm. I'm sure someone who had actual voltage regulator experience and parts could do better. I'd be kind of surprised if they didn't hit > 95% efficiency on step-down.

Stepping UP voltage is harder, but stepping it down is pretty easy. As long as you're using a switcher circuit and a low-loss switching device like a MOSFET, efficiency should be pretty high.

ItsJustMe

No, the text pretty clearly says "at the battery."

seeker333

My apologies, my reading and writing leave much to be desired.

Thanks again for sharing your evaluation of Magicshine.

jefferee

The part number in the Geoman site's specs for this light makes me believe the P7 is a C-bin (700-800 lumen @ 2800 mA). So it could be well below 770 lumens even before accounting for the lower current. Then, you also have to derate the output due to the junction temperature being above 25 C (somewhere between 10-20%, I'd say, guesstimating from the datasheet with reasonable assumptions about the junction temperature).

Throw all that together, and the actual LED output is probably in the 500-550 lumen range even before accounting for losses in the optics.

I still ordered one.

Cyclist0383

Please stop spamming the forum with these posts. The thread you started asking 'opinions' about the lights you are selling was bad enough. Thanks.

InTheRain

As much as everyone says it's great to purchase through geomangear.com, my experience has been exactly the opposite! It's nice to buy from a U.S. supplier so that you can talk to that supplier if something goes wrong??? I doubt it. Geomangear.com "contact us" doesn't list a phone number so that you can actually talk with someone. The "live support" button has always shown that they are not online.

I received an e-mail from geomangear.com asking why I had not completed my purchase. I explained that each time I put in the credit card information the transaction would not be completed and I was asked to fill in the information on "required fields." I did complete the information only to be asked to complete it again. So... I never did "checkout" and I never did receive confirmation of my purchase. However, I did get charged a few times on my credit card! I have been patient. Nothing back from geomangear.com (I get a much better response from dealextreme.) I've disputed the charges on the credit card, I've reported the incident to the better business bureau in Washington State (I'll get to New Mexico next), I've reported this to the Washington State Attorney General's office, and in my e-mail to geomangear.com I also indicated that I would comment on this experience in bikeforums.net.

Anyway, just one guy's experience with geomangear.com....

ItsJustMe

Huh. Well, I ordered on Wednesday afternoon and had my stuff on Friday. Didn't have to contact them so I can't say anything about that. Sounds like they have website problems.

Good luck getting that sorted out.

I've never had any trouble with DealExtreme either, but it has taken me up to 8 weeks to get stuff before, and I've never tried to contact them for support or returns either. I suspect returns to them would be an intensely unpleasant experience.

The Big Wheel

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, do you work for DX by any chance?

I kid, I kid, I don't think any company is perfect but like others have said I would rather deal with the geo man than some chinese company!

GeoMan

Greetings fellow riders and InTheRain too.

It's already sorted out. Within an hour of me hearing about this, a total of just two refunds were issued but this did not appease InTheRain, with great regret.

There was a network error that very well could have been our server but, just as fairly, it could have been InTheRain's. This has never happened before and I offered my sincerest apology. It is unfortunate and we've done everything to correct this situation. Again, we offer our sincere apology to InTheRain and hope this does not reflect poorly on the reputation we've strived so hard to achieve with the thousands of customers we've served since 1993.

Our mantra is to "astonish" our customers with our service. We try very hard.

Thank you for the soapbox.

Peace,

Geo