Cool Idea for a high powered LED headlight

R

RLorange

New Member
Hey everybody! I am doing some research into a successful headlight which will run off the White Wire.

This is what I have come up with: A 3 watt CREE LED Drop-in torch lamp. These little suckers pump out a sheet load of light and come complete with a reflector and all. Everybody check out this link and read the customer reviews. VERY interesting and so cheap.

They seem to fit the bill and should be easy to mount in some sort of housing. A 3 watt LED shouldn't draw too much current so as to not interfere with the CDI.

I am going to order a couple of these and will report when I get it running.

DealExtreme: $10.14 3V~18V Input 3W Cree Drop-in Module (supports Surefire 6P)
 
I have checked out Norman's light. Very nice workmanship and very reasonable price. I am keen on an LED however because you get a lot more light from the same amount of current. one of these Cree LED chips pumps out 200-300 lumens of light for only 3 Watts of power.

Norman; if you check this post out follow the link to the site and have a look at the naken Cree LED chips for sale for peanuts. Do you think that one of these could be used with your refelctor and housing unit?

The 'Drop in' torch replacement units I was looking at have very small built-in reflectors which I feel may produce too narrow a beam.
 
I've been looking into stuff myself, as I'm planning a full lighting system for my bike and trailer. I've found out that you will be better off with Cree XP-G R5's than the XP-e Q5's or other lesser models. Much higher lumens and much more efficient. To drive them you will want BuckPuck drivers.
 
TheOtherStyle said:
I've been looking into stuff myself, as I'm planning a full lighting system for my bike and trailer. I've found out that you will be better off with Cree XP-G R5's than the XP-e Q5's or other lesser models. Much higher lumens and much more efficient. To drive them you will want BuckPuck drivers.
Click to expand...

What is a BuckBuck driver?
SB
 
Long story short a BuckPuck is a regulator for high output LED's. You choose the mA output to match the LED's you are using and it outputs that mA at the voltage required. The nice thing is that they accept a wide range of voltage inputs.
 
If you're going to use one of those Cree lights put a diode inline with the white wire. LEDs will run off AC but not for long. I tried one of the mag light retrofit bulbs (rated up to 12V) and it lasted about 15 minutes before started getting very dim and blinking. I probably spent enough trying different LED solutions for running off the white wire to buy one of the rechargeable LED setups. lol
Just A FYI but the mag only puts out 3w so you'll only have enough power to just light the head light unless you add a battery.
What I ended up using was a 3 watt LED, driver, reflector and a 6v SLA battery all bought off ebay for about $30 total and I'm VERY happy with it.
 
Contrary to popular belief LED are not that much more efficient than incandescent and markedly inferior to flourescent. However they have the HUGE advantage in bike applications of mechanical ruggedness.

Also note that Cree (jaffa! sorry, SG-1 fan) and Luxeon type, although quite sexy, are not cost effective compared to multi-LED versions. For a bike any light in the range of 50-100 LEDs running off AA cells will be hard to beat. Brighter and more efficient than any of the alternatives. And with 6-7hr time before recharge it's not worth screwing with white wire issues unless you do MOST of your riding at night. Certainly the best option if you only get caught after dark once in a while like me.
 
Speaking lights, I just finished an experiement that didn't quite play out. I ran two 6v lantern batteries in series and then wired two foglights and a trailer light to my bike. They lit just fine....but the wattage sucked. I decided to go a whole different route. I'll be posting a youtube vid of it later today. YouTube - 5cud6uddy's Channel My other idea is to use just plain old led bicyle lights. Two in the front and two in the back, but the second one in the back will be rigged as a brake light. I'll probably post the build on the chop shop section of this forum as that is where I usually hang out.
 
BarelyAWake said:
If anyone's geek enough to be curious like me :p

LED Efficiency Comparison;
http://www.ecoledlighting.com/docs/LEDEfficiencyComparison.pdf
Click to expand...

These guys are biased toward LED technology but even using their figures you can see that incandescent and LED overlap. They are careful not to include flourescent in their comparisons which beat the pants off both. When cost is factored in there is no real comparison at all.

That being said I still prefer LEDs for the bike for reasons I mentioned before.
 
They did include "Compact Fluorescent" - but I mostly linked that one because it was a nice easy comprehensive chart lol

Yeah, while yer right about fluorescents - it's kinda a moot point as they're not a viable option for our bikes anyway heh
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top