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wingless' Road Edition Outbound Lighting Headlight

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wingless' Road Edition Outbound Lighting Headlight

Old 09-21-18, 05:01 PM
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wingless' Road Edition Outbound Lighting Headlight


The daylight hours are getting shorter so I needed a headlight for safe operation for my before or after work jaunt. The headlight also needs to be useful for daytime operation, for additional visibility / safety to avoid getting flattened.

My headlight selection was the Outbound Lighting Road Edition Headlight. This includes a 6,400 mAh Li-ion battery and a Li-ion wall wart battery charger. This headlight is a well-engineered product. They have one other model, the Outbound Lighting Trail Edition Headlight . They also sell these two together as the Outbound Lighting Ultimate Downhill Package, with all the mounting options to put one on the handlebars and one on the helmet.

The headlight body is very nice. It is cast magnesium that is then black anodized. The headlamp looks reasonably sealed. There is no IP rating specified. My guess is that the product would satisfy the IP53 grade, protection from some water and not dust protection. The in-line cord jack / plug has an o-ring to seal that connection to the battery pack.

The headlight has excellent thermal management. The magnesium case has exterior ribbed fins, plus a forward facing scoop, integrated with the handlebar mount, for movement-induced flow-through air across the deep bottom housing ribs. The most important part for reliable high-power LED products is proper thermal management. This design excels.

The main factor leading me to select this headlight is the optical design. Most headlights use a parabolic reflector and place the LED at the sweet spot. That gets lots of light, but it is basically a flashlight, making a round spot that is not ideal for road operation. This Outbound Lighting Road Edition headlight uses 1,330 reflectors to beam shape for a flat top "cut off line" to create a "light carpet" that is ideal for road operation. It doesn't blind oncoming vehicle operators, putting the light only onto the ground. My real-world operation confirms those marketing / engineering claims. I am very satisfied with the beam shape and the roadway illumination.

The kit includes these parts:
* Headlight, Only Headlight, Including Attached 9" Cable: 103g, Complete Headlight, Including Cable and Complete Handlebar Mount: 142g
* Battery Pack Assembly w/ Fabric Case/Mount, Strap and 9" Cable: 282g
* Go Pro Tab and Attachment Screw: 4g
* NEMA 1-15 100-240VAC 50/60 Hz Input / 8.4VDC, 1.2A Output Li-Ion Wall Wart Charger w/ Red/Green Charge Indicator and 36" Cord
* Full Color Customer Appreciation Card - Instruction Manual
* Storage Box w/ Dual Zipper Closure - Could be Useful for Unused Product Storage

The headlight is retained to the handlebar using a thick band stretched around the handlebar, then hooked back to to the handlebar mount on the other end. The band looks very durable. The attachment / removal is easy and intuitive.

The handlebar mount is an excellent design. It has an integrated cavity for routing the horizontal brake cable as it exits the handlebar tape. When I first mounted the headlight, that horizontal brake cable exited at the forward centerline of the handlebar on my bike. At that location it prohibited aiming the headlight low enough because of interference in that cable cavity, so I carefully massaged the cable to exit the handlebar tape lower, w/o damaging or adversely affecting the handlebar tape. Now I can point the headlight at the correct elevation.

Changing from the default handlebar mount to the included Go Pro tab is "easy". Slip out the curved handlebar plug to expose the cap screw retaining the thermal air scoop / handlebar strap assembly. Use a 3mm Allen wrench (not included) to unscrew that part. Use the same screw / wrench to attach the Go Pro tab.

The cable exits the right side of the headlight, so the headlight should go on the left side of the handlebar.

The battery pack is contained within a really cool / well-made fabric enclosure w/ a long / wide fabric tab to attach to the top tube. The fabric touching the bike frame is soft to not scratch the bike finish. On my 2016 Trek 1.1, the cross section of the top tube is a "D"-shape with a 5-1/2" circumference. The battery enclosure strap first attaches to the top tube w/ Velcro, then the dangling end needs to wrap around the tube and re-attach to itself to not flop around. With my fat top tube, the length should be longer by 1" to grab properly and 2" longer would be the ideal tab length. In my case I have to pull / stretch that tab so the Velcro JUST catches, so the dangling end is secure and not flopping around. It would work fine for a standard round top tube.

In my application, with the most logical cable routing, the cables are JUST long enough. The battery pack is placed as-close to the headset as-possible. The handlebars are as-low as-possible (not for the cable routing, but for personal preference). If the handlebars were higher, a less optimum routing would be required because of the short cable length.

The headlight has one "large" switch, about 1"X1/2", orange in color. The headlight has a five segment green LED display.

Long press for on and for off. When operating, the five segment display is used for a continuously illuminated battery capacity gas gauge. Single press to show selected operating mode, "quickly" followed by single presses to select a different operating mode. The display is showing the selected operating mode with each press. After seconds the display reverts to gas gauge.

These are the five modes that may be selected: Adaptive Mode, that starts high intensity, automatically reducing to medium over 45 minutes to permit unnoticed eye adjustment / adaptation to the lower level, extending battery run time; High, maximum intensity; Medium High; Medium and finally Low, still bright, providing maximum battery run time.

There is also a different way to power up select the daytime mode, where the intensity slowly "warbles" between bright and less bright. When off press twice for daytime warble. Long press for off. IMO the daytime slow warble is insufficient to burn through the thick crust encasing the brains of the person sitting behind the steering wheel.

The five segment LED display shows six levels of battery gas gauge capacity, from full to last segment blinking when 10 minutes of capacity remain. It also automatically drops intensity level when required.

The motion-induced flow-through air cooling works great while moving. When stopped the cooling is less. The headlight monitors the temperature and will pulse the intensity to limit heat/temperature if remaining stopped at maximum intensity.

The wall wart battery charger LED shows red when charging and green when fully charged.

Note that the wall wart power supply has these international markings: CE; FCC; Double Insulated; Indoor Equipment and Read the Instructions. It also has the manufacturer's part number. There is no manufacturer's name and there is no UL marking. A search did not locate this exact power supply, but I found several other Chinese manufacturers making similar products w/ similar specifications, using this same plastic case. Even though there isn't a UL mark, there is nothing to indicate this power supply is in any way deficient.

The storage case is high quality and well designed. The exterior is black woven fabric with white silk screened graphics / text. The exterior has a rigid box shape, with rounded corners. There is a two zipper closure, orange in color. There is a rubber padded fabric handle. The interior foam has custom cutouts to fit each of the parts and a mesh pocket for the paperwork. The enclosure interior is black velour.

Also of note, the manufacturer shipped the same day the order was placed, immediately provided a tracking number and the headlight arrived two days later. It was well-packaged in a custom printed / custom sized shipping box. This is THE BEST vendor S+H experience I've had in a long time.

This product was purchased by me using cash from my pocket. I have zero affiliation and zero agreement w/ the manufacturer or w/ the vendor.





















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Old 10-02-18, 08:10 AM
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Originally Posted by wingless
The headlamp looks reasonably sealed. There is no IP rating specified. My guess is that the product would satisfy the IP53 grade, protection from some water and not dust protection.
The Outbound Lighting FAQ page lists the IP rating for the headlight: "It is IP65 rated, meaning it is be dust-proof and water resistant."
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Old 10-05-18, 11:13 PM
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This image shows the headlight beam pattern, with the "light carpet", to not blind oncoming operators.


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