Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the contact. Unfortunately the Fly6's condition here regressed from mysteriously turning itself off to refusing to turn on. It hasn't wound up in the household garbage yet, nor have I taken a screwdriver to it either. (Not sure what the unit is based on, but I'm guessing some sort of ARM-based SoC… I have a little embedded-Linux knowledge under my hat.)

I acknowledge my use-case is very atypical in that, I am trying to permanently power the device externally from a 12V→USB power supply. I basically found at first the USB cable kept falling out. Hot glue fixed this somewhat, but when the unit then refused to power up, I decided not to pursue it further.

Basically, the unit was never designed to be powered in this manner. Micro-USB connectors are not designed to remain in place with the vibration that stuff gets on the back of a bike. Brisbane roads are hardly rough, but I've seen plenty of screw-on fittings rattle themselves loose. (Some examples: tips on pens, a cigarette lighter plug, the screws in my radio transceiver case). Micro USB cables just don't handle that sort of abuse. A DC barrel connector may work, or a more industrial style

The concept of the Fly6 is brilliant, and for <2hr commutes it'd be fine. There's enough battery life to get to your destination and at worst case if you can't charge it while you're there, you will still have enough power to get home. Theoretically. My commutes to/from work are 1 hour, and I can use my laptop to charge at work, and there's a few places where I can charge at home.

Just on long commutes or trips, the battery capacity isn't quite there. (e.g. when I do a trip to my radio club, that's an 80km round trip that means 6 hours of cycling.) Being able to externally power it would fix this. Being able to externally control it would be real nice too, so that it turns on with the rest of my other lights -- something I can do without stopping.

There is a possibility to fix that in the next revision. The use of USB isn't a bad idea, just relying on it as the sole connector for power means providing power to it externally whilst on the move becomes more difficult, and thus would benefit from a dedicated, more robust socket.

For those who only do short runs, it's worth looking into. It's just a matter of knowing the device's limitations.