I just did a little experimenting with the Philips LED Bike light I got. Nice light on the whole, though perhaps not as bright as I would ideally like. The shaped beam is a sizable advantage, though, as I no longer have way too much light on my front panniers. More details on use as is can be found in thread http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...re!?p=13585851 . Here I will be including details for those who might wish to use one of these as a headlight withing a larger fancy system and don't mind risking voiding warranties.

Mounting: The stock mount clamps semi-perminently (though tool free) to the handlebar. From my reading the handlebar height mount is desirable to keep because the height affects the effectiveness of the beam shape. The clip on the light body is attached to the battery compartment with internal philips screws, so it should be possible to mount it to anything - with one caveat. The mount holes have a ~1" spacing, and the allen screw that keeps the battery cover closed is ~1/2" from the mount hole.

Construction: The case is solid metal (I think sold as, and feels like aluminium). I've dropped mine once from handlebar height to concrete with slight cosmetic damage.

Power: Comes with 4 NIMH AA batteries, and charges from USB (cable not supplied, but highly standard) or power cord they supply (mine, ordered from Europe, came with two pin plug, but adapter will accept 100-240V 50/60Hz, so no great difficulty there.)

As for internal power, the battery holder is marked 1.2-1.5V under each cell, and illuminated quite happily with alkaline batteries. I also attached an 800mA rated voltage regulator to it. At 6V, I was able to get it to run happily, except that the converter became too hot to touch after a few minutes. At 4.5V it ran well enough on low, but when I tried to switch it to high it complained of low battery and then switched back to low. I had to disconnect power to get it to return to high.

Unfortunately I can't give exact readings of power usage because the multimeter I'm traveling with only handles 200mA. The manual says that it should last 2 hours on high with the included 2450mAh NIMH, or 1225mA at 4.8V nominal yielding about 5.88W - a figure that fits my experience with the converter.

For obvious reasons, I can't test now, but I have seen a mention online that when running 6V external through the main circuitry, the high to low swap occurs by timer. I have seen another note saying that the battery monitor lights operate by timer, but the light will happily run while showing 0 bars. Seemed to have something to do with which version of the light was being used.

When the light was charging, it wouldn't turn on. There is room to slip a power cord in past the USB jack in the back of the light but you then wouldn't be able to able to close the rubber cover - an issue of varying significance. It should also be possible to drill a hole in the case for a wire to fit through, though I'm not sure there is all that much room between the battery holder and the case. The battery holder riveted to the main circuit board, so you'll need a drill and a soldering iron if you want to remove it neatly.

I have seen a suggestion that one could remove the original circuitry entirely and run the light off a b2flex (from www.taskled.com), and as a bonus get higher power out of the thing (1A through the LEDs instead of 800mA. This, however, is unsubstantiated, source forgotten (too lazy to hunt up now), internet reading). You're on your own there, though please post back if you try it.

All in all, I like it, though I would like to set up a symmetrical high beam on an easy switch for darker out of traffic situations.

Attached are pictures of the internals I figured I might as well take while I had it open. You are responsible for what your hands do.

Tor