Wake up and smell the smoke, even if it's you who is smoking.
Any of us can purchase the magicshine light for a minimum 50 units, maybe 100 and re-name it on the packaging.
If anyone was going to spend the money developing a better light and batteries it would be the MANUFACTURER.
I can not and sorry it has been proven that any of the Magicshine "STYLE" lights are made specially for the DISTRIBUTOR.
The factory will package anway you want if there is a large enough order. Lasering Gemini on the housing can be done for an extra $0.50 each if that much.

Bottom line, some times you get a bargain, sometimes you get burned.
Geoman will hopefully back-up the replacement of HIS battery/charger or whatever he says. There are plenty of folks who bought dealextreme units and now it finally has been proven
that many lights had a bogus UL label on them. If you are savy enough to be on this or similar forums you know may have heard that or knew that those chargers had issues over a year ago.

My suggestion? Just lick your wounds and wait for Geoman to resolve. In the meantime buy a battery to use from several vendors that are reliable and worse case you will have an extra battery.
In anycase IMHO, Gemini sounds like ANOTHER Magicshine product distributor.

Rob

Hello and Merry Christmas,

To reply to colleens question, our battery is 5200 mAh. The one used with Magicshine products is 4400 mAh. You can find more information for the battery cells, including the UL code here

For the rest of the questions including low mode run time allow me to come back to you on Monday from my office.

Regarding Robs ideas, they are many valid points in there. His estimation of Gemini being a distributor though is not correct.

I am a European (Greek) hired by Gemini and I am leaving, working and studying my MBA in China. I will be more than glad to give you an insight into production here. From my experience in Bike forums I noticed that they are many speculations and different opinions regarding production and business practises in China.

Back to our subject, using the link for our battery pack you will notice that our cells are sourched from CBAK the biggest and most reliable battery cells producer in China. I do not believe that any distributor would be able to make such a deal.

Anyway I can assure you that we are a MANUFACTURER and not a distributor of any other manufacturer. This is something that we do prove to our distributors and dealers. Anyway, there is no reason to lie. Don't you think so?

Greets nd happy holidays,
Vag
On behalf of the Gemini team

Can you tell me the brand and per-cell capacity of the Li Ion cells used in your battery packs?

Can you tell me the battery capacity claimed for your battery pack?

Can you tell the running voltage and current consumption of your light when running continuously with a charged battery at 70F?

According to your battery spec - your light will be running at below 1.3A on high, this is at least 200mA below regular MS900 implementation.

This means your light will be running at lower power consumption - perhaps as much as 1.5 watts lower than an MS900 - and that could men that your light actullly performs at 100 lumen less light across all modes -in comparison to a MS900.

So it looks as if your light will indeed be more reliable -and less likely to have temperature issues. In other words, what is the power consumption of your light at each mode, as expressed as "power watts" -not light?

I may buy some light heads. How about three for $100.

MBA in China? Why China? Do they have the best college for your particular discipline? Say what you want about Chinese made products, but they have had the highest recalls in manufacturing in the last 15 years then any other country has in any 20 year period. And almost all of this recall stuff was stuff that would have never been a recall problem if it had been continually made in the US or some other western country. All one has to do is a search for these problems and can readily find out, sites like:

http://www.paulmidler.com/chinese-products-still-suck/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=11656278
http://www.rense.com/general78/chinsl.htm
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/saf...u-trust-c.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Ch...export_recalls
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008...nting-concern/

Granted, not all stuff they make is junk, their the only manufacture of LED bulbs in the world and they seem to be just fine, but what could go wrong with a LED bulb? They make the best vacuum tubes in the world for high end stereo components, I know this because I have a vacuum tube home amplifier and I buy my tubes made from there. Even in the cycling industry AL frames made by them seem to hold up very well even the cheap ones, but CF products have been an issue. I've had florescent bulbs made in China explode in my house raining glass and mercury powder down and in a couple of cases ruined the lamp when it popped. Products that I have bought in the last 15 years made in China only last a year or so past the warranty period, and I've had products not even make it past that; prior to the Asian invasion it wasn't uncommon for these same products to last 15 or more years. In fact I have never in my life had to return a product for warranty adjustment until the last 15 years, and I've had to return at least a dozen different products and a couple twice within the warranty period only to have those die shortly after the warranty expired. Even computers, though all of them are made in China now, when use to be made in Japan would last a lot longer then today. I bought a 286 brand new in 1986 that lasted 12 years including the hard drive, and even after 12 years it still worked but it was so obsolete that I had to throw it away; since then they haven't lasted more the 5 years with about 2 years for the hard drive. I'm 56 years old so I've been around long enough to know this how long products use to last, some of you younger people don't realize this because you didn't live back when China wasn't making much so never experienced what products were like prior to all this Chinese made stuff.

Anyway just my take on it all, you can get your MBA there and brag about how good they make stuff but the proof is the facts and it's just not a historical representative of the majority of stuff being made there vs made elsewhere. I try to avoid purchasing Chinese made stuff, but in a lot of cases that's the only country that makes that particular product so I'm forced to buy it if I need to have it except in few examples that I gave where they make some really good stuff.

Hello
Following you will find the info I managed to get from the data sheets I have in my hands using my limited electrical engineering knowledge. We also received your e-mail at info@gemini-lights.com. I am going to mail you the data sheets both for the battery cell and the battery pack.

Brand: BAK (NASDAQ Listed: CBAK), cells used in DELL and HP products.
Cell Model:C18650CC (UL registration no. 09CA63004)
Capacity:2250 mAh
Battery Pack Nominal Capacity 5200 mAh

Nominal Battery Pack Voltage: 7.4V-8.2V

High Mode: 900 Lm Drive:2.4A
Low Mode: 300 Lm Drive: 0.6A[

So far reports and critics from people who bought the Gemini Titan say that it is slightly brighter from MS900. This is also our opinion here in Gemini. We will have to wait the official report of mtbr.com to have an official independent opinion. In the meantime an experienced user test shows exactly the opposite:
Initial light ceiling bounce tests (with the same partially charged 8.08v Gemini battery pack) show:
MS 900 unit 1: 90
MS 900 unit 2: 91
Gemini Titan: 102
You can find this post here: http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=675372

It seems that the answer is here :http://www.seoulsemicon.com/en/popup...ct.asp?seq=230
I will have to consult our technicians in order to be 100% sure of my answer. Please give me some time for it as I am the Marketing guy.
We can give you a better price once you want to become a dealer or you want to place a group order (more than 10 light sets).

Care to reconcile those two numbers? When cells are wired in series the mA-hr numbers don't change (but the voltages would add), whereas when wired in parallel the mA-hrs would add (and the voltage would be unchanged). I presume your battery pack wires pairs of cells in parallel and then takes two of those pairs and wires them in series to get the voltage up to the nominal 7.4V (Li cells are nominally 3.7V each). But if each cell is 2250 mA-hr, then wiring a pair in parallel would get you 4500 mA-hr for the pack, not 5200 mA-hr. Conversely, if the pack had a total of 6 cells (groups of 3 in parallel with the 2 groups in series) then you'd get a total of 6750 mA-hr for the pack. I can't see any way in which you start with individual cells at 2250 mA-hr and end up combining them in a battery pack that has 5200 mA-hr.
This also raises questions. Drawing 2.4 A from a battery pack that has 5200 mA-hr (= 5.2 A-hr) would yield a run time of 5.2 A-hr/2.4A = 2.2 hr
(and if the pack capacity is really only 4.5 A-hr, then this would drop to under 2 hours).

Hello again,

I think I did not deliver my point very well with my last post. I definitely did not wanted to say that ALL products made in China are of good quality. What is my point is that if you are a good manufacturer you can produce quality products. China having the biggest recalls the last 20 years is not something that should suprise anybody and I definitely do not object this.

Within the last 30 years that China open its doors to the rest of the world many things have changed and keep changing everyday. The last decade many companies, especially from USA, UK, Germany and France have move to China and set their production. These companies apply western production and management practises and deliver products of good quality. Also from this cultural/practise exchange (you can even call it brain drain) many Chinese manufacturers have learned and are following good proccesses which ensure good product quality. In the meantime do not forget that Chinese are extremely smart and hardworking people.
The combination of hard work, cheap labour and quality management can deliver quality products in affordable prices.

Personally, I am young enough to have your experience but I believe that there is certainly difference in the durability of the products. My opinion is that this is not only a result of poor manufacturing (which is indeed the biggest part of the problem) but also a solution that companies (even the biggest multinationals) found in order to accelerate their products circulation. Also take into account that products manufacturing has become a bit more complicated the last two decades due to the high technology standards applied to some of them.

Regarding you personal question, I study in HKUST and its MBA is ranked 9th globally according to FT (ratings can be considered biased sometimes but for sure this is a Top Class MBA). China at the moment is where things happen and that is the reason I choose to move from Europe to here. So far I believe that this is the best decision/investment for my career while at the same time I get to know a new culture.

On personal Behalf
Vaggelis Monogyios
Gemini Industries Marketing Manager

Yeah, I do find this very confusing. Is the 2250mah cell a typo error Gemini?

I also was somehwat skeptical of the runtime and amp draw in my previous post. However after some thoughts, I will give Gemini the benefit of the doubt here if he can concur with what I"m gonna comment here.

I believe the light is running from a PWM driver. If that is correct, then it will be hard to get an true accurate Amp reading from a RMS meter to do the bench testing from anyone who is reviewing the product. Based on the data of a SSC P7, that emitter can draw over 2 amps easily, but much less if driven by a PWM driver. If this is the case, then it is good because it will allow for the longer runtime but bad for wireless sensor as they will pick up all that wonderful electrical noise. As a ccomparison, the MS also uses the P7 emitter and gets 3hrs of runtime off of a 4400 mah battery. The math here show that the MS is only drawing 1.5 amps. So if the Titan light draw the same current as the MS, then the runtime off the 5200 mah pack will yield 3.5 hrs. If the light is a CC regulated until the last 1/2 to 1 hour, then maybe it can get that extra 1/2 hour for that total 4 hrs of runtime but with some lost of lumen at the end. I hope the reviewer at MTBR can confirm the runtime and overall brightness from start to finish.

As for the brighter light ouput of the unit as compare to the MS light, there is 2 reasons I can think of. One is that the light is running higher amps but that means less runtime than the 4 hours claimed. The better possible answer is that it is a different bin which has a different light color from the LED. I have noticed a greenish tint from my MS light. A more white color tint from a different bin may give out better noticable brightness without using more power.

Gemini, can you confirm any of this? If so, I am willling to try on of your light.

Agreed, but I thought Gemini Rider was giving numbers as reported by the manufacturer - and I'd expect them to know the characteristics of the driver including the pulse duty cycle and average current draw and not be fooled by the reading on a multimeter.

I am also interested in this light (especially if a tail light will be coming) provided some clarification is given.

Hello,
I am sorry for my late reply.

I was informed by our engineer that indeed, Titan is using a PWM driver.
Our emitter is a P7 C-Bin which, with our settings, produces a more white beam from the MS900 as it can be seen by the side by side comparisont and review made by Baker in MTBR:
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=675372

The battery runtime has been extensively tested by us. I will also ask the reviewer to test it once more for everybody to be sure. He is anyway planning to completely dissolve the battery and test it. Safety comes first and we want to be sure that there won't be any problem with our battery and charger.

Regarding our driver I hope you understand that we do not want to disclose any more information at this time because of competition. We believe that we managed to draw a great amount of light from a single LED and we actually feel very proud of it. The current tests and the information provided can help any user to do an informed decision.
Anyway I am still in your disposal for any question and I am aware that I still need to answer the low mode runtime question. I will do this before the New Years :)

On Behalf of the Gemini Team,
Vag

In case you want to purchase one of the Gemini Titan, PM me and a small, belated Christmas present is wating for you.

On Behalf of the Gemini Team,
Happy New Year! :)

Fair enough Vag. You survived my critics and answer enough of the question except for the 2250mah vs 5200mah cell, but you probably has to get those from engineering and I know how frustrating that can be dealing with them even at my work place. PM sent and an order for one unit just been placed at the Gemini website. I also emailed you at the Gemini site :)

Hello,
Thanks for your trust :)

Actually I just checked once more the BAK Cell data sheet and I realised that I made a mistake last time as the capacity of each cell is 2550 mAh and not 2250 mAh. Hope that now the numbers make sense.

Greets,
Vag

After reading all the posts, and going to the beam shots I too am impressed. Very interesting indeed, it seems like a quality product at a very good price point to compete with MS. I got burned by my MS, when the unit failed 4 months into ownership with only a 3 month warranty. I E-mailed them at least a dozen times and never got a response on how to get it repaired. I was forced to buy another light from a company I knew had a good reputation and got a Cygolite ExpiliOn 250 which I really like because it eliminates the external battery. If I had known about Gemini I may have tried you guys. It sounds like with all the effort Gemini put out on this forum to answer all doubters and questions that their going to be outstanding in customer service, and that's how business is earned.

Good luck with your product.

Sincerely; rekmeyata

The beamshots make it look they are using a better reflector than in the MS light. The light is a little more concentrated, the tighter the brighter as the saying goes.. Looks like a nice product. I guess I was one of the lucky ones, bought 1st gen MS light and it is still working fine.

Just some unsolicited advice for you GeminiRides:

It's generally considered not good form to push your own product on the bike forums. Exceptions are made, and truth is, the Electronics forum is likely the most friendly to these posts, so you did choose the best place to do it. However, understand that a good number of people will view your self-promotion with suspicion. Also, look at how many other professional dealers post regularly to promote their products on the forums - almost none. It's simply not a good way to promote your item, regardless of how good it is. (Do a search on Roadbike forums for "BIKESDIRECT" to see a great example of how even an excellently executed product will have haters across the board, even 3-4 years after the dealer stopped posting online.) Also keep in mind that a lot of forum moderators will ban you for 'advertising' on the forums. I'm not saying they should - I actually happen to like the way your product sounds, and if it weren't for my satistfaction with my Magicshine, I'd likely buy one myself.

A much better approach would to be to PM one of the forum members who seems to have credibility around here and posts regularly, and to send them a test unit for review. I'm sure you'd find takers, and one good 'unbiased' review is worth more than all the good press you make for yourself.



Bottom line - exercise (extreme) caution with posting liberally about your own product on bike forums to promote your new product. Even if it's great, there's a good chance the message will get taken the wrong way at some point.

Hello,

Thank you very much for your advice. I could not agree more with you. I do believe that Facebook, Twitter and Newsletters are the best way to increase your sales, while forums are the best platforms to receive critics and improve.

Especially when you are launching a new product and you are a new manufacturer, like us, forums are the best way to feel what riders need in order to deliver.

Actually one of my first posts when subscribing to this forum was a request for review:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...=#post11609831

I was directed to mtbr.com which was actually a very good idea. I really wish that somebody would jump and ask to review Titan from Bikeforums.net. I would be more than glad to send him one, once I was assured that the review would be done in a professional manner, like the one Baker is doing in mtbr.com for instance.

Definitely I am not going to turn this post into an advertisement and I will only reply to technical questions people may have, as I see it to be part of my job.

Your advice is much appreciated and thank you for reminding me about the "golden rule of forums". Be sure that you will not see me jumping around and posting to every possible thread.

Greets,
Vag
On Behalf of the Gemini Team

Hey Vag, two 2550 mah cells in parallel will only give you 5100mah not 5200...Are you sure it's not a 5100mah battery?

Do you see almost everything as a nefarious conspiracy out the screw you? Get help. Seriously.

Of all the complaining about how bad the MS lights and especially the battery packs, how many of people on this board have had there chargers go up in smoke or have there house burn down. I'm sure I would of seen a thread, my house almost burned down - don't buy an MS light..

hey socal, no house burning down here. But, from my experience, the MS does have quality issues. The first head I received died within 24 hours. Also, my battery failed in less than 3 months.

I like the MS light, but with everything going on, one starts to wonder.

No burning house here either, but first the light failed, and after a couple hours of dinkin with it I got to work, then the charger failed and I couldn't fix it. This all took place a month after the 3 month warranty expired thus Geoman, who never responded to dozens of e-mails I sent, was under no obligation to fix it. So I guess what SocialRider is saying that if your house didn't burn down then the product is good regardless if it failed after the chintzy 90 day warranty and lived to be 121 days old.

At first I thought my failure was a fluke, but then similar problems started cropping on other forums as well. If mine was the only failure or only one of only a couple then I would chalk it up to being a fluke, but it's a reoccurring problem that is not shared often with other products. Add that with the zero response I got from Geoman and I'm through with any of Geoman products or the MS light.

That is not what I am saying. I have heard these tale tales of flames shooting out 18650 cells for years, while I'm sure that they may have happened, consider that hundreds of millions of these cells are used in light to laptops and more but have only come across a few who have actually seen the pink elephant namely venting with flame scenario.

I have been using lights with these cells for 4 years and have had zero issues. I bought 2 - ms lights - 1st gen - zero issues other than the battery not holding a full charge which is the norm. The 2nd ms light I gave to a friend and he uses it without issue a couple times a week. I guess I am just lucky, oh wait I think I smell smoke.. No that is my girlfriend cooking again.

if buying these types of lights or using flashlights with 18650 cells make you nervous, please only buy name brand lights for 4x-5x the price for the same level of output.

When your light has problems or your battery dies and you go back to niterider make sure to have plenty of $$$ to pay there service fee or 200.00 for a new battery because they can't figure out what is wrong with your light. Been down that road more than once.

There was nothing that happened to the MS light that made me nervous, it just broke and that made me pissed.

i cant send PM's but id be willing to try out your lights, im looking for 3 of the light heads only, no batteries. If youd like to include a battery for review thats cool.

you can contact me via email Luci[AT]theurbansniper[DOT]com