operator

He's talking about retrofitting the standard bike light mount which quick releases off the handlebar - the light unit comes off leaving the bracket on the bike. It slides on and off.

daniel58

Its really quite simple, use what white water rafters and sea going kayakers use to keep their gear dry and protected; just use what is called a "dry sack".

Basically whatever is inside the dry sack stays dry "no matter what"(below is a link of what said dry sack looks like along with a brief description.

https://www.seatosummit.com/products/display/15

One can buy a dry sack at ones local walmart; the bonus here is it will keep all of your other gear like valuable electronics(cell phone, camera, battery pack, etc) all nice, dry and protected.

cheers to using dry sacks

sinclac

My MS arrived on thursday and i rode with it to and from work yesterday, this thing is friggin amazing
Before this i had a Fenix flash light worked well just not bright enought, now i just need my Dinotte tail light to arrive and i will be set.

fiataccompli

i know it's off topic, but that reminds me to ask if there's an equally cost-effective rear light alternative to the $200+ lights....

daniel58

Great gazooks, another light astonished MS user is brought back over from the dark side

Was the MS light helmet or handlebar mounted.

Did you try both helmet and handlebar mounted methods of illuminating the roadway and any preferences one way or the other?

Was both the MS corona and spill better than the corona/spill of the Fenix flashlight beam pattern?

cheers its the weekend

sinclac

I have only tried handelbar mount


Yes much better the the flashlight

daniel58

Fenix lost to MS, but then Fenix is a flashlight after all.

The MS is supposedly ten watts of high intensity Led lumens of illuminance.

Well glad to hear you though you got your money's worth, as I had a similar enlightening experience; the light is truly brilliant and intense indeed. You just have to see it to experience and believe it, as it blows away my former Princeton Tec SwitchBack I Led Lightset by such a large margin I just basically retired it to taillight duties to protect my rear flank(it has a high intensity flash mode).

cheers its the weekend

bmclaughlin807

I wrapped the ends of mine is a couple layers of electrical tape, then used Gorilla brand duct tape wrapped around the main body of the battery.

Then I stuck it in a plastic sandwich bag and rubber banded it around the cord.

Battery still fits easily into the holder it came with, and I'm pretty sure it will stand up to any weather I'm likely to be riding in!

youthcom

Here's my photo of HID versus LED.
The HID has a wider angle beam & more even light distribution. One is good, but both on are very nice though probably very annoying for riders & peds coming towards you especially on a dark MUP.

The clicky switch on my copy of the (3 mode) Magicshine isn't always responsive for some reason.

daniel58

Cool, nice to know HID and MS LED are basically comparable with HID edging out MS LED light beam patterns.

Geoman has once again sold out of MS Lightset's MJ-808 but still has the MS Racer version that comes with an extra battery and an extra helmet mount for $125 which is a good combination price; as its always useful to have that extra spare battery to ensure one has a comfortable reserve amount of time to get home.

Cheers for HID and MS LED

daniel58

Looks like the next shipment of Magishine Lightset will be coming in on the 12th of November to geomangear; give or take a day; for those of you who have been waiting to get their hands on one heck of a bright Led lightset-it is worth the wait indeed.

Extra Lithium Ion batteries are also out of stock until thursday.

Hopefully we will start getting more "in the field" feedback and reviews from MS Lightset users out there whether they be good or bad; its all good and useful feedback information for users to further consider and contemplate.

Looks like geomangear is selling out of the MS Lightset's rapidly even after restocking in a couple days time; geomangear has a webmail link that is useful for letting potential MS purchasers know via notification when restocked.

cheers its a rainfree weekend

fiataccompli

I built a bike for a friend yesterday (I found him a deal on a basket case old Cannondale touring bike like one I have & told him I'd build it & fill in the blanks with some parts he needed for it) & we got done about 9:30.....that was the first real test ride of my MS.....wow! I've been using a (150 lumen?) Taskforce Cree light with good success in terms of cars recognizing me + vision when riding with no other ambient light....the MS is a huge difference. It was interesting too to watch my friend test-riding the bike (remember - this is a bike he's never even seen put together, much less was used to) on my very dark street with nothing but the MS lighting the way. The only thing better I could think of would be 2 of them....but I wonder if people would process that as a single car very far away...maybe???

Oh...I guess if there's another drawback, the shear difference in quality of light has now made all my rear lights seem lame and has put me in the Dinotte market (or thereabout). Oh well.

daniel58

Yes there is nothing in so far as the sheer magnitude of, the purity of and the intensity of the white hot half floodlike spill light and the half spotlight like lighting intensity Led light beam pattern offered by the MS Led Lightset.

Wondering figuratively or not, whether the MS Led Lightset holds up "in the field tests" when comparing the 800lumen Dinotte 800L Led Lightset against the MS Lightset and then comparing that against the VisionX Solstice Solo S1100 Led Lightset engine?

In any event, it looks like it passes with flying colors once again with another impressed and satisfied MS user.

Looks like its going to take MS quite some time before the big boys' bicycle lighting manufacturers(Cygolite, Lupine, Dinotte, Niteflux, Niterider, Light & Motion, Blackburn, Princeton Tec, Cateye, Sigma) start taking them seriously as a potential bicycle lighting contender in its own right.

Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later as I have seen to many substandard, dimly lit, overly expensive bicycle lighting systems from the sampling of the ten big boys above.

My gosh, just on the external rechargeable lithium ion battery pack a cyclist is going to save a fortune.

That is because the replacement rechargeable external lithium ion battery packs are outfitted with proprietary connectors and proprietary rechargeable external battery packs.

These battery packs often cost upwards in the neighborhood of $200 dollars; is not an uncommon associated add-on post purchase cost.

Then to add "insult to injury" these replacement battery packs come with a downright comparitively puny external rechargeable battery reserve capacity that always leaves one seemingly still wanting for more battery run times(high intensity setting) out in the field; which naturally require the potential purchase of yet another additional battery pack.

The MS Led Lighset System on the other hand, comes with external replacement rechargeable battery packs that come with both non-proprietary connectors and generic replacement rechargeable battery packs,

which allow any cyclist to both affordably and easily add multiple battery packs(at any time- $40) to extend potential battery(high intensity setting) run times out in the field(now that is something to finally cheer about for all nighttime cyclists).

Is it any wonder that the MS Led Lightset has grown so popular in just a couple months so much so that the Geomangear cannot order them fast enough to keep them in stock, (no surprise here).

Fortunately the factory, MINJUN Electronic Co is currently capable of producing 10,000 MS Led Lightset's per month or 330 units per day.

I estimate geomangear is selling(when he has them in stock) at least 50 MS Led Lightset units per day. Hopefully that number will only grow and increase; much to the consternation of the big ten bicycle lighting system manufacturers(from above paragraph).

Geomangear needs to continually restock and reorder larger amounts of MS Lightsets thanks to positive "word of mouth" BF forum and other lighting forum postings(now that is something to cheer about- as the nighttime cycling cyclist is the ultimate winner here)

cheers for cycling after daylight saving time

nwmtnbkr

The light heads are sold out, too. I received my Magicshine last week and like it well enough that I'm going to order another light head. Ultimately, for a back up battery I'm going to go with NiMH, given the high cost and short life span of LiION. I still want to work on my own DIY light project over the winter, using some of the new Cree XP-Gs (these tiny chips put out more than 300 lumens apiece).

To compete with Chinese-based companies using P7 technology, which is becoming dated, to produce inexpensive lights, I think you'll see the big name light sources keep adopting the newest Cree LEDs (XP-Gs just came out) and other LEDs that are even brighter (like the Luminous SST 90s 120s--the 90s are white and put out 1000-2250 lumens; the 120s come in several colors). You'll have tiny light heads with unimaginably bright light of varying types, flood, high and low beams, etc. Most Chinese-based companies tend to source their materials at the lowest possible cost so they may never be the leaders in innovation; they will wait until cheaper, reverse-engineered clones are available. You will pay a premium to be the first adopter of the next generation of super lights that will make the Magicshine look very dim in comparison. We're on the verge of a lighting revolution.

dynodonn

In other words, we're really going to piss off a lot more motorists.

nwmtnbkr

dynodonn,

Well, with future, more powerful light heads, I think most of us will be using a low beam while riding on roads. Those who need to ride in totally unlit areas will have unprecedented, portable lighting power. They will be able to make the night "disappear."

If you check out some of the DIY light threads on other forums, many DIYers are now working with the newly-released XP-Gs--using 7-up and 11-up boards (that's 7 or 11 individual XP-Gs, which can put out more than 300 lumens per LED chip). DIYers are already building a mix of XP-Gs and XP-Es with multiple lenses to provide a wide range of lighting options in light heads not much bigger than the Magicshine.

The Luminous LEDs are more powerful than the Crees--they're also more expensive, but the Luminous can replace multiple LEDs in applications. Cree always seems to be upping the ante, too. Who knows what their next LED will be capable of. I'm really excited about the prospect for more affordable, power conserving light bulbs in the home. I began using CF bulbs several years ago and they really save on electricity. LEDs should conserve even more. The present generation of LED light bulbs are still pretty expensive and I'm not sure about reliability and build quality so I'll hold off buying any until the price drops and I have a better sense of QC.

daniel58

Yes I agree, the Lithium Ion battery does have a rather interesting related fact, one not widely publisized is the unique weak point of the Li-ion battery is that its life span is dependent upon aging from time of manufacturing (shelf life) regardless of whether it was charged, and not just on the number of charge/discharge cycles.

At a 100% charge level, a typical Li-ion laptop battery that's nearly fully charged most of the time at 25 degrees Celsius(77 degrees F), will irreversibly lose approximately 20% permanent total capacity per year.

This capacity loss begins from the time it was manufactured, and occurs even when the battery is unused.

This phenomenon is called "aging of lithium-ion" rechargeable cells and is an issue that is often ignored entirely.

Apparently, the lithium ion cell capacity loss manifests itself in increased lithium ion cell internal resistance caused via internal oxidation "rusting" of the lithium ion rechargeable cell and is unfortunately unavoidable.

Eventually, this lithium ion rechargeable cell resistance reaches a point where the lithium ion pack can no longer deliver the stored energy although the battery may still have ample charge held internally(green light is lit; says ok).

Unfortunately, there are no remedies to restore a lithium-ion rechargeable cell once it is worn out.

A momentary improvement in performance can be noticeable when heating up the battery as this lowers the effective lithium ion cells internal resistance momentarily but the condition reverts back to its former state when the temperature drops back down again.

Another interesting fact regarding Lithium Ion batteries, if the battery is used and overly depleted, this is called in battery terminalogy a "deep discharge" cycle, and this decreases its permanent capacity.

Approximately 100 deep discharge cycles leaves the battery with about 75% to 85% permanent total capacity.

So bottom line its best to not discharge more than a "safe bet" 60 percent DoD (depth of discharge) of total charge capacity (no more than 4400maH x 0.60 = 2640maH of current before recharging).

cheers on the weekends

daniel58

Yes, Nickel Metal Hydride batteries are a possible option.

The electronics is generally more complex for the charging of the nickel metal hydride batteries due to the fact that the Nickel Metal Hydride producing a characteric very small voltage drop at full charge.

This NDV(negative delta v) value that the electronics of the Nickel Metal Hydride battery charger must be able to detect a voltage of of 16mV or less.

Of course that is where the problem arises is when the NiMH battery also exhibits eventual aging and cell mismatch works further against detecting the already very minute voltage delta.

Naturally, the cell mismatch gets worse with age and increased cycle count, which makes the use of the NDV increasingly more difficult.

Now increasing the sensitivity of the charger to respond to the small voltage drop often terminates the fast charge by error halfway through the charge cycle.

Also voltage fluctuations and noise induced by the battery and charger can fool the NDV detection circuit if set too precisely.

Due to some of the common NiMH charging problems outlined above, most of today’s better brand name NiMH fast chargers use a combination of NDV, voltage plateau, rate-oftemperature- increase (dT/dt), temperature threshold and timeout timers.

The charger utilizes whatever comes first to terminate the fast-charge to ensure the protection of the NiMH battery.

NiMH batteries which use the NDV method or the thermal cut-off control method tend to deliver higher capacities than those charged by less aggressive methods.

The resulting gain is approximately 6 percent on a good battery. This capacity increase is due to the brief overcharge to which the battery is exposed.

Naturally nothing comes for free so, the negative aspect or down side is a significantly shorter cycle life. Rather than expecting 350 to 400 service cycles, the NiMH battery pack may be exhausted in fact within 300 cycles unfortunately.

Most common NiMH fast-chargers work on the rate-of-temperature increase (dT/dt).

A temperature raise of 1°C or (1.8°F) per minute is commonly used to terminate the charge.

The absolute temperature cut-off is 60°C (140°F).

A topping charge of 0.1C is added for about 30 minutes to maximize the charge.

Cooling periods of a few minutes are added when certain voltage peaks are reached to further protect the NiMH battery pack.

The charge then continues at a lower current.

When reaching the next charge threshold, the current steps down further.

The process is repeated until the battery is fully charged.

The continuous trickle charge that follows keeps the battery in full charge state.

The particular method of varying the charge is also known as a ‘step-differential charge’, this charge method works well with NiMH batteries.

The charge current adjusts to the SoC(state of charge), allowing high current at the beginning and more moderate current towards the end of charge to further protect the NiMH battery from damage.

This of course helps to avoid the excessive and undesired temperature buildup towards the end of the charge cycle when the battery is less capable of accepting charge.

NiMH batteries should be rapid charged rather than slow charged to enable detection of NDV.

The amount of trickle charge applied to maintain full charge is especially critical.

This is very critical because the NiMH battery does not absorb overcharge well, the trickle charge must be set very low.

The recommended trickle charge for the NiMH battery is a low 0.05C to avoid damage to the NiMH cell.

Now harmful overcharge can occur, if a partially or fully charged battery is charged on a charger with a fixed timer.

The same occurs if the battery has lost charge acceptance due to age and can only hold 50 percent of charge.

A fixed timer that delivers a 100 percent charge each time without regard to the battery condition would ultimately apply too much charge.

Thus overcharge could occur, even though the NiMH battery feels cool to the touch.

Some lower-priced chargers may not apply a fully saturated charge.

On these economy chargers, the full-charge detection may occur immediately after a given voltage peak is reached or a temperature threshold is detected, which is problematic as the battery is not fully charged.

These chargers are commonly promoted on the merit of short charge time and moderate price.

Now naturally, your mileage and success of recharging your particular chosen NiMH batteries in your battery pack may vary depending on the selection of your NiMH recharger and its characteristic chosen NiMH charging algorithms.

cheers for the weekend

ItsJustMe

Honestly, if I had one of the high end lights and I needed a new battery pack, and they wanted $200 for it, I'l hack off the proprietary connector, replace it with a standard one, and use a Magicshine pack and charger. Either that or I'd pop the weld on the proprietary pack and drop in new generic cells.

I've got a 20 year old cordless drill that I've rebuilt the battery packs on twice now. It's $60 for a new pack, but I can buy the cells to rebuild it for $25 and do the job in 30 minutes. They work fine and have lasted as long as the OEM Panasonic cells.

A few years ago when my HID connectors failed, I hacked them off and replaced them with 2-pin rubber trailer connectors. They work just fine, though I don't use that light anymore (the Magicshine puts out as much light as the 2 year old HID bulb, and with 1/4 the weight and size battery).

daniel58

Indeed, I agree it is likely to be a two year to three year wait before some of the more next generation Cree's show up in a bicycle Led Lightset system like in the MagicShine incarnation.

So now might be a good time for the hobbyist D-I-Y to do an upgrade LED Lightset system upgrade project in the interim.

cheers for DIY upgrade Led Lightset system upgrading

daniel58

Yes, it seems the bicycle Led Lightset manufacturers have got the Led bicycle lighting system consumer both fooled and brainwashed.

Some of these Led bicycle lighting system are truly pathetic indeed like in the Niteflux Photon Extreme Max Plus which is a very bright Led bicycle lighting system indeed in its own right.

The battery of the Niteflux is rated at 12V at only 2,200mA of battery capacity; a new low in battery capacity indeed. Unfortunately, they will defensively naturally point out the bicycle lighting system warranty will be voided.

Really now, almost anyone "with some common sense" can solder and heat shrink two positive and negative wires to a battery terminal using the proper polarity orientated connectorized connections. See below supplied link $1.50 for a two conductor 18gauge waterproof connector typically used in trailer configuration.

https://www.allelectronics.com/make-a...8-AWG/-/1.html

Its not "rocket science" folks, although its always prudent to check and recheck ones polarity just to make sure always of course; as the bicycle lighting system manufacturers would have you believe trying to scare the consumer into buying their excessively expensive proprietary rechargeable external battery packs.

Ooops, I guess the secret is out thanks to BF forums and other bicycle lighting like forums; much to the consternation of the now profit stunned and profit shocked bicycle lighting system manufacturers still desperately trying to, pawn off their overpriced battery packs to the remaining decreasing number of uninformed and unaware bicycle lighting system consumers.

cheers for making ones own battery pack

socalrider

The next gen LED's are already here, they have just not been retrofitted for bike applications.. I imagine we will see something in the next 6 months.. It is called Luminous Phlatlight LED, here is one of my favorite makers of custom led lights.. He is already selling a model that puts out 1750 lumens (the bulb is rated from 1000 to 2250 lumens) this is a single die led light. The beamshots I have seen from this light are a little tighter with a little less sidespill over the P7 that is used with the magicshine, which is fine with me. There are a few versions of this led already available for mod's..

https://elektrolumens.com/Blaster-NG/Blaster-NG.html

https://www.luminus.com/content1454

Pic below of beamshots, P7 is the middle pic and L. Phlatlight is top right pic..

daniel58

Very cool, looks like next generation Led's may be in bicycle lighting systems sooner rather than later.

Just a matter of solving hopefully, the heat generated from these uberbright heat generating 1000 plus lumen led dies; with perhaps an enhanced heat transfer enclosure.

Another problem, though not as great; is these brighter 1000 plus lumen led dies in a bicycle lamp would require three plus amps of current to be generated and delivered from the external rechargeable battery on its high light output intensity.

cheers there can never be to much light

dynodonn

Believe me, after dealing with sidewall powered dynamo lighting systems of days gone by, I'm grateful for the current lighting systems available today, plus I too am also excited about the future LED systems. I'm not into the DIY cutting edge scene, since I can wait for the next generation lighting system to become mainstream, as my current lighting system I have (dual MS setup) is more than enough to hold me over until a better, reasonably priced system comes on line.

JSiemens

Put me down in the "flash" column (front MS during daylight hours; rear Dionette at all times).