Brighter-Lights

Try to get a replacement frame, or a rear triangle. If not, you can easily fix the frame. It happened to my RDS too but I got a replacement. There's no serious forces at that joint... the sound you hear is of the gap closing and tubes hitting each other... Clamp it together, drill 4mm holes x4 just above each weld... noticed there's another tube inside? pop rivet inside tube and outer tubes together. Rough up 25mm from the weld on each tube. Wrap the 25+25mm with carbon fibre + epoxy = one very neat and strong 'weld' if you're up to it ;-)

This night series was actually the ideal place for Speedi15 to get into night riding... even if it was his first time offroad... nice singletrack in baakens and lots of fun riders... Y don't you come tonight Speedi15? it's R20 entry. We meet at Cyclo Pro's parking lot where the race also starts and finishes...

floyed, I'll give you some guidelines for building that light off a 12v SLA... Email me: johannes at jgerber dot com

Revelation-4 is ready. I have 2 available. Thanks Sampie... but I'm on Vodacom wireless... When we moved to a new place I thought I'll save the hassle of applying for an ADLS line again and just get wireless instead... If I knew what a nightmare I was getting into with MWEB's incompetent support staff I would've gone through the trouble applying with Telkom a 100 times... Agent Orenge, I don't think we're gonna get anywhere near 600 lumens red light... the Red led's can do 500mA max and the forward voltage is very very low... 2 to 2.5v each... But, it's impossible to look into one white LED at 220 lumens so it'l be interesting to see how they are when they arrive here. For those interested: 10x Revelation-3's available before Trans Baviaans... time's running out to get new parts.. I have parts for 10 Revelation-3's here and the batteries are on their way still... Yes... we're at page 35... thanks Speedi15... what a thread! ) HAHA

Agent Orenge, I've got 6 red LED's coming... will keep you posted... Sorry... I've reached my cap.. on dialup so I won't be around much... Jo

I've already made a hard hat prototype... This technology will be superb for construction, but consider incandescent bulbs and lead acid batteries vs LED and Li-Ion, then there's quite a big price difference.. I'm busy with home security light systems, and emergency backup light systems... Just need enough time because I'm also designing a completely new housing for the Revelation-3.

You just worked out the LED's power and the forward voltage for 1000mA is too low... most of the 30+ I have here are that forward voltage at 800mA. You also didn't consider the voltage drop over a driver... and you took the same efficiency for both setups = impossible... 7.4v and 700mA is way less efficient than 11.1v and 290mA.... You can't work out the power of one LED and then just multiply it by 2... it doesn't work like that... once you put 2 LED's in series everything changes on the input side... the biggest is current which influences battery efficiency - even when using lipo's which are high current friendly... You're light will only burn at 500mA per LED until the battery reaches 7.4v, then it will dim... and I've been way conservative to take only 0.5v drop over the driver... most Drivers need: LED voltage +1.00v minimum to stay in regulation - some require 1v for the driver + extra 1v per LED... that's why you can't really drive 2 LEDs off 7.4 volt at any decent current... best is to tell us: Actual voltage and current over LED's Actual voltage and current over loaded battery... If you still have to build your light, I can already tell you that it will be 700mA+ on the input with 2xLED in series at 500mA each. To achieve the same burn time like you stated, you will need 0.7(I)x11.5(hours) = 8000mAh I've yet to see a 7.4v 8000mA lipo... but since it's 8000 and I have 4000 cells here...;-) we'll need 2x 4000cells in parallel and 2 in series = 4 cells total, which gives me a battery pack of at least 380g. The revelation-1's battery is under 290g... ;-) Of course 2 LED's at a lower current will be slightly more efficient, but not as much as you initially stated - and they'll only burn at that brightness until the battery v+ drops enough, then they will dim slowly...Brighter-Lights2008-06-17 09:34:31

Pleasure! That's why the mounting bracket is plastic! So in case of a bad accident, your light survives and the bracket is easily replaced.

Blackburn's are +- 150g PER unit...

They use Luxeon III LED's... And they are heavy...

Yes, $180 for the same battery the Revelation-3 uses and $130 for a similar charger on the thunderpower site... Then add shipping, time in transit, time to collect + fuel, customs fees, time to cycle and test battery, time to assemble battery pack into housing + fixing connectors... Then you'll understand why even R4500 is very cheap for a system like the Revelation-3.

Unfortunately not, I have an option on the website of buying the light alone, but I can't do it like that anymore. It will be complete systems from now on. I have better control over the quality as everything gets tested and I can offer a product with confidence. Enjoy your weekend. Jo

6 cells from them would be 3.3 x 2.3 x 6 = 45.5 watts/h @ 420g @ $129.00 ( I use li=po that's 65 watts/h at 400g ) = too expensive... add time to build pack, shrink-pack, liquid sealer, housing = one very expensive battery... Worth it where big amps are to be drawn, but not for bike lights...

They are good for very heavy Amp drain, but have lower capacity per weight than the li-ion and Li-polymer I use... They do however, have a much longer cycle life... 1000 cycles... where li-ion and li-polymner is about 300 to 500 cycle life. Bike lights pull 0.5 to 1.5 amps average... Their spec is 3.3v nominal, 2.3Ah 70g , my li-ion is 3.7v, 2.4Ah, 50g But... amazing amount of current available from them! Brighter-Lights2008-06-13 09:47:59

Talking of baviaans... I think it depends very much on how fast you will do the race... we all normally reach Heroncliff/Kondomo during day still, so we only need lights for never ender to jbay... easy gravel roads.. But the slower riders finding themselves at Geelhoutbos in the dark have a whole different challenge!

Well, I think our lap times reflect that we knew the course pretty well ;-) It's the 3rd race of a 4 race night series... I don't use a bright light on the helmet... it blinds you when looking down... I only use a light on the helmet to be able to see around me shen I stop and to see my bar... A bright light on the helmet fills the shadows and takes away perspective... just how I prefer it... I think every section of the road through baviaans is quite easy... We train there a lot and Gert lives there and owns a big part of the kloof between Kondomo and Bruintjieskraal... The only challenging part for me is down Bergplaas if you let go of the brakes and at the bottom through Poortjie... there after it's nice wide gravel again... But... having all that light will surely make an impression!

I've done 70km/h with a Revelation-3 and I touch 60+ regularly with the greatest ease. To give you an idea of how hard I ride, I've done a 3:25 Karoo to Koast 8 months after I started riding a bike the first time (and it was a 12kg fully It's really difficult comparing lumens of the Cree LED's to the Seoul's used in in other lights. Both has same lumens, but... At 70cm Cree gives 320 LUX and Seoul gives 154 LUX.... it's because the Cree has a 90deg primary beam and Seoul a 135 deg primary beam... same lumens remember... most of the Seoul's light is lost on the sides. See this pic.... same lights, same batteries, same drivers... Seoul LED's and Cree LED's... same lumens rating... but see the difference on the trail... hmm

Last night's racing results... I doubt anyone of us could do faster lap times during day... Our average speed 25km/h for a tough singletrack course... First 3 riders had Revelation-3's on. Johannes Gerber2320:11:070:11:230:11:230:11:380:11:120:56:43 5 lapsJasonEldridge2370:11:100:11:180:11:240:11:380:11:150:56:45 5 lapsJohanBritz2410:11:080:11:410:11:570:11:580:11:500:58:34 5 laps

Good luck Jaco! That's something I would love to do one day when I can afford to escape for a month! Brighter-Lights2008-06-12 05:56:11

Level-3 - minimum 20 hours. (up to 22 hours in tests) (white reflector @ 40m)

I think they are perfectly suitable for multi day events, more so than any other system I know of... Revelation-3 burn times: Level 5 (High Beam - minimum 5 hours burn time) (735 lumens)<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> Level 4 (minimum 11 hours burn time) (427 lumens) Level 3 (minimum 20 hours burn time) (332 lumens) Level 2 (minimum 50 hours burn time) (190 lumens) Level 1 (minimum 120 hours burn time) (45 lumens) Now think about how much power you can get from AA's and what light output you can drive....when running the Revelation-3 at the same outputs than capable with AA's, you'll see in the above chart that the Revelation-3 can burn for hours and hours nonstop... Most Revelation-3 owners agree that Level-2 is bright enought to ride pretty fast with... and that's worth 50 hours. Keep in mind that most of us ride only offroad, so an even better test.

Marius, The shutter speed depends somewhat on the environment you take the photos in. In the above photos in the backyard, I first found an exposure to accurately resemble the Brighter lights and then left the camera at that setting for the Light and Motion. In the backyard I used: Manual mode Daylight white balance ISO 200 F4.0 1 Second Yes... fast shutter, because so much light is reflected back from the concrete wall... BUT... With the same lights in the bush, I used a slower shutter speed, because less light is reflected back... In the end I just use different shutter speeds until the photo on the camera matches the light in the bush pretty closely and leave it at that. It takes 4 or 5 test photos to find a good true exposure. MTRB used: ISO 100 F4.0 6 seconds... If I use that with my lights, they appear overwhelmingly over exposed on the camera... and remember.. I wanna give out the true appearance of the light. For the photos in the bush with the spot aimed at 40m I used: ISO 200 F4.0 3.2 Seconds... For a shootout on the open road with the spot aimed at 60m, I used: ISO 100 F4.0 4 Seconds I must say, after seeing light shootout photos of HID's on the web, incl. the L&M, I was very disappointed when I saw the L&M in real life...I expected a white blinding light... but on its dim level is almost blue green. The beam is very even though and I can't say anything bad about it... just that it deosn't nearly appear as bright as the revelation-3.

I wish I had more of the top lights to compare... I've only seen 'n nightlighting at 24hrs of Wiesenhof before, but I'm really after a Betty and a Wilma... Cause by now everybody knows the difference between XR-E's and Seoul Z-Powers...

I think the spot lenses I use most closely resemble the beam pattern of the Light and motion HID. The revelation-3 comes standard with the medium lens. The spot lens gives you an advantage on open roads with good light at up to 70/80m far... it still gives good spill on the sides, but narrower than the medium lens. The medium lens is pretty much like a car's headlights... fills a 4 lane road at 40 to 50m. Very good in the bush as it lights up the tree canopy, + the trail... Best all round lens I have. The wide lens gives very smooth light but only penetrates to about 40m...(still excellent) I recommend this lens to riders doing singletrack and forest riding mostly. Both light's hotspots were aimed at the white reflector at 40m...

Marius... here a few photos so long... it is raining so I took them off the stoep... At 20m : Light and Motion Li-ion Ultra ARC HID : 15 LUX Revelation-4 : 65 LUX Revelation-3 spot beam : 46 LUX Revelation-3 medium beam : 27 LUX Revelation-3 wide beam : 12 LUX Revelation-3 with Seoul Z-Power LED : 15 LUX Photo #1 : Brighter-Lights.com Revelation-3 spot beam vs Light and Motion ARC HID Photo#2 : Revelation-3 medium beam vs L&M ARC HID Photo #3 : Revelation-3 wide beam vs L&M ARC HID