cccorlew

My thickly-gloved hands and frozen fingers thank you for this tip.

AdamDZ

Yup, thanks for the tip! I also like the idea of an extension cable and keeping the battery in the pannier.

Adam

AdamDZ

My new light has a problem. It worked for about two hours and now it's intermittent. It sometimes works for few minutes, sometimes few seconds. If I unplug it and plug it back in, it starts working for some time, then stops again. The LED can't decide whether to stay green or red.

When I plug the battery to the charger, the charger light alternates between red and green, sometimes it's red for few minutes, then green, then red again. It looks like the battery has some connection problem.

I emailed them for help. But this is discouraging

Adam

TwoHeadsBrewing

Who did you buy the unit from?

sierrabob

My battery use summary: use your Magicshines in subzero weather without worry, ride for a couple hours, store batteries in the fridge, then when at room temperature, charge four hours in preparation for another subzero night ride.

Now here's something new--an on topic sub-topic: lumen output from the new Magicshine MJ-812 P7 D-bin flashlight is actually higher than the standard Magicshine MJ-808 P7 C-bin! Lab testing by JTR1962 at CandlePowerForums of the two LEDs confirms my own road and trail testing over the past few nights. Check this out:


The MJ-808 P7 C-bin is digitally regulated to 2400ma. This equates to 667.02 lumens light output, according to the above lab test from September, 2008. The MJ-812 D-bin, digitally regulated to 2800ma, emits 765.30 lumens (October 2008, lab test).

Even at comparable currents of 2400ma, the D-bin beats the C-bin by over 18 lumens while consuming less power (8.47 watts vs. 8.83 watts).

Bottom line: the MJ-812 single cell flashlight is more efficient than its big brother MJ-808, as this lumens/watt chart illustrates:



Note that efficiency really drops off at higher current levels, a common LED characteristic from what I've read. At low current levels of 1000ma both P7s are quite efficient and rival the performance of the new XPG lights.

But I still like the MJ-808 more than the flashlight--it puts out a wider beam, a s--- eating grin I call it, as compared to the more narrow parabola of the MJ-812. But used in a side by side handlebar configuration, the pair is a real winner.

Okay, now let's go back to the battery discussion because I do actually learn something from those long off topic tangents.

Cyclist0383

+1

If you ordered from DX you are most likely SOL, at least for a few months as they have simply terrible CS. A US based seller hopefully will get back to you soon.

daniel58

Hopefully this will help somewhat with your present intermittent Magicshine lighting problem troubleshooting situation.

Sounds like a bad electrical mechanical connection either within the electro-mechanical wiring and/or connectors or

the Magicshine Led Lightset's electro-mechanical wiring within the Magicshine Led Lightset's enclosure(printed circuit board/wiring) or

the Magicshine Led Lightset's electro-mechanical wiring within the lithium ion battery pack(printed circuit board/wiring)

To help isolate the problem from the choices above one could simply take four "D" size batteries and put them into a four "D" size battery holder(use DC power connector jack to mate with DC power plug, with positive connection to center pin) and then power up the Magicshine Led Lightset to see if the Magicshine Led Lightset still cuts out intermittently.

If the intermittent light problem goes away it is isolated to the battery pack only.

If the intermittent light problem is still present then at least one has ruled out the battery pack as the cause of the intermittent light problem.

Contact the seller of the Magicshine Led Lightset directly(by both phone and e-mail) and tell them the problem resides either in the battery pack and/or the Magichine Led Lightset itself and that an Magicshine Led Lightset defective product exchange is needed, as the product is defective under warranty.

daniel58

Hopefully, it won't be to long before Magicshine gets the P7 Seoul "C" bin emitter switched out with the upgraded enhanced "D" bin emitter. Very nice specifications indeed.

AdamDZ

Daniel58, thanks. I'm going to try that today. I have some spare power adapters, perhaps I can find a 6V one. I wasn't sure if it was OK to connect another power source directly.

TwoHeadsBrewing, I bought it on eBay. The seller has already responded this morning, they will replace the battery. I'll do some more testing though to rule out the light itself and perhaps order a spare battery too.

Adam

kudude

If you really want a good test, they have to test more than 2 lights. 10 of each would make me happy (and be totally unreasonable, I know).

That thing about LED light efficiency dropping as a function of increased current.....I just had a conversation about that, like 2 days ago. I'm sure you guys could give a ****, but the idea of my research being connected to something in reality is awesome (for me)

RapidRobert

I went to the thread on Candlepowerforums quoted above. The numbers given are usefull for comparison purposes. And remember, he's measuring raw LED output, not the output from a headlight head.

datlas 

I have had my MS for a couple of months now and am pleased with it.

But I am concerned that I will wear out or break the wire/connector between the battery pack and the light unit. It seems to be a weak link in the design, and one must pull very hard to separate them.

On that note, I do have a question that the electricity/battery-literate here can probably answer easily:

I generally disconnect the battery pack when not in use, since it seems like the green LED is just draining/wasting power. But this obviously will increase the wear and tear on the connection I referenced above...so does it make sense just to leave it connected at all times? How much power is actually being used by the little LED? what is the "burn time" (if you will) of the little LED?

Doug

TwoHeadsBrewing

Yes, the battery connection is very difficult to remove. Not sure why they didn't put a simple "Off" switch on the pack, but I may just put my own in.

Mark Hahn

Be sure any adapters you try have a positive center tip, else your light will go phtttt! The MagicShine I have has a center positive tip, your mileage may vary. It's easy to test your battery connector polarity if you have a multimeter.

And that's also another test you could do. Hold the multimeter leads on the battery jack and have a friend wiggle the cable to the battery. If your voltage readings change, you have a defective connection somewhere between the jack and the battery.

You adapter should also be rated at better than 1 aH or 1000 mAh, Anything less probably won't provide enuff power.

Mark

AdamDZ

Yup. Thanks. That's what the seller said to. I'll test it later today.

Adam

ItsJustMe

The pilot LED in the back will reduce your runtime by 6 minutes per 24 hours that it's left to burn. That's been covered in this thread, but it's back about 56,252,144 messages so I am not surprised you didn't find it.

I highly recommend taking some sandpaper or something to the plastic ridge on the male half of the connector, sanding it down until the connector isn't so hard to pull apart. I fixed mine last night and it now barely clicks when it goes together - still something I'm confident will not accidentally fall apart, but I don't have to twist and grunt to get it apart now either.

daniel58

What I generally recommend to minimize the stress on the very fragile connecting wires themselves,

is to twist/rotate the plastic barrel connector bodies only and not the connecting wire,

very slowly and deliberately while gently pulling them apart with equal force from each end.

Also another thing that one can easily try is to coat each plastic barrel connector body end with a bit of light vegetable oil(corn oil is fine) and

one will find it is significantly easier to pull apart.

daniel58

It may still be better going with the optional add-in upgrade switch idea, as its simple enough to put in ones "favorite" or "whatever's available switch" in series with the DC power connecting wires.

daniel58

Let us know how you make out in your jiggle/wiggle test of your Magicshine intermittent Led lightset output problem using your multimeter.

Where does the intermittent Led light output problem emanate from; one needs to conduct primarily two tests:

One "multimeter test" going from the connector body towards the battery pack(connecting wires, battery pack printed circuit board), using your multimeter to detect for any voltage fluctuations(0 voltage open circuit open terminal battery voltage on the multimeter means that one has detected an open circuit condition looking back through all the way back to battery pack).

If it passes this "multimeter voltage test" with flying colors by showing some kind of battery voltage at all times without ever going to 0 volts then one can conclude(with high confidence) the problem does not lie from the connector body looking back through all the way back to battery pack.

Then the second "multimeter test", tests everything from the connector body going fowards to the Led Lightset itself(connecting wires; driver printed circuit board, wires inside the lightset's enclosure),

to help detect, localize/isolate location of any intermittent electro-mechanical connection(one sets the multimeter to measure current "in-line series current" which on the high intensity setting should be 1.466aH(so set the current setting range accordingly on the multimeter),

If it passes this "multimeter current test" with flying colors by not dropping the "in-lin series current" ever to the Led Lighthead on the multimeter,

then one can conclude(with high confidence) the problem also does not lie from the connector body looking forwards to the Led Lightset itself(remember to vibrate the connecting wires, driver printed circuit board, the Led Lightset body and enclosure to simulate the artificial creation of an "open circuit" fault condition).

Good Luck troubleshooting

ItsJustMe

I did all that absolutely as carefully as I could. The wire still came apart. Thus my recommendation to sand down the bump that causes all the friction in the first place. I stopped while there was still a little bit of resistance, but it's now pretty easy to take apart without waiting for the sweat to dry off my hands and then twisting and pulling like mad.

For the wire, since it's still working, I ran electrical tape lengthwise over the connector and about 3 inches of wire. Two pieces, then a firm wrap around the connector as a strain relief, then another lengthwise piece, then a spiral all the way down. We'll see how long that holds up.

ItsJustMe

It occurs to me that if a person got the Y adaptor from GeoManGear, you would never need to disconnect anything. Put the Y adaptor in line, and leave one of the ends hanging. Plug the charger into that.

Wouldn't work for me since I need to use my bike in the winter and apparently it's bad for LiIon to charge them when it's far below freezing, but it could be a great idea for many people.

daniel58

the key thing here is to not take off to much "protruding bump material(friction)" at one time but other than that should work fine also as well.

daniel58

capital idea indeed, using the y-adapter as a "tap-in" splice point for the lithium ion charger to plug into; nice suggestion.

colleen c

Have that been tried and tested. Will it harm th MS light any to still be in the circuit? I wanted to try that but I am afraid to do so, since I am not sure what damages the charger output can do to the light during charging. I guess it will be ok to use the Y and charger if there is some inline switch that disconnect the MS light from the Y plug.

In the meantime I am workimg on an idea similar to the above idea. I'm gonna slice into the MS wire with a reed switch and turning it on with a 1/4" magnet rod while still connected to the Y. That way it can be charged with the Y and is not in the circuit anymore. Think that"ll work?

daniel58

should not hurt anything since it is directly in "parallel common node connection" to ones battery pack pos./neg. terminals electrically.