Discussion: 900 lumen headlamp for $78 US

I was thinking about this too. Some guys have already ordered it, maybe they can post a review? Sounds like shipping is not the quickest.

http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...
http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...

I ordered the one without the headband back in June and I got it two days before Jukola. I think it took two weeks and two days from order. It took me 15 min to turn it into this


It works like charm. I havn't done much night-o this year but I have used the lamp for a variety of things. It gives, obviously, much more ligth than my old halogen, it's easy to use and does not take much space.

I can't say it's comfortable (or pretty) especially with the battery on the headband but when I've been running it has not been of any nuisance. Clearly worth the money...

Have you been able to compare it side by side with a Tesla?

http://fonarevka.lux-rc.com/
road \ Magicshine HA-III is this lamp. There is no Lupine Tesla, but lots of some other brads. I think maybe Hirppa can arrange(?) some beamshots comparisons against Lupines/Petzl ultra if you really really want.

Edit: Googling
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/exposu...

There's been a lot of threads about this light on MTBR, eg.
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=527707

There are a few variants of the light:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.25149
which is just the bike light

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.29489
which also has a headband.

http://www.geomangear.com/index.php?main_page=inde...
Geoman also sells some accessories such as a helmet mount but I do not think he sells a headband.

I bought the DealExtreme lamp with the headband. It has 3 modes - Full, low and flashing. The battery is rated for 3 hours and the reviews indicate that it will last at least this long on full power.

The concensus seems to be that the light is not 900 lumens, more like 500-600. It is certainly much brighter than my old Mila 20W halogen.

The headband is pretty much like any other non-orienteering headtorch. One elastic strap around the head and one over. The battery back is quite small but the cable is very short. I have one of the old Silva battery backpacks and the battery will not reach to the bottom of the sack. The battery can be clipped to the headband but I think it would probably bounce too much when running.

I have only have it a couple of days and my only opportunity to test it was MTBing on Thursday. Unfortunately, I had a mechanical and had to bail out early so I wasn't able to test it properly. On the bike, I found it gave plenty of light.

At one point I pointed it into a piece of open forest. The beam pattern seemed very good - the central core was not too much brighter than the edges. I had good vilibility in the foreground (for my feet), the midground (to pick out features) and the background (to sweep search). It may be difficult to read a map with so much light but I haven't checked this.

I compared it with another 200 lumen light that I have. This one has a very bright central core - even brighter than the 20W Mila. The MS was significantly better in the core and in a different league around the edges.

Assuming the MS doesn't explode within the next few months it seems very good value. I know the Scandinavians have moved on form the 20W halogen but, around here, it's still state of the art. The MS is much much better and a fraction of the cost.

Be sure to WATERPROOF THE BATTERY!
According to the light geeks it's not well sealed and will die if wet. Many high performance but less expensive lithium batteries suffer this ailment.

For the money, this light is super bright. I can now run terrain at night at almost full speed. What a joy it is to be able to move fast and safe at night.

The head band that I received is useless for holding the battery because it has no band running over the top of the head. Any body have a slick idea for improvising a better headband/harness?

The battery pack seems heavy, I am not sure if it state of the art. The accompanying charger says Lithium Ion. Can I substitute a lighter battery pack? How do I waterproof the battery pack?

Until I make something better, I have been stashing the battery in a backpack. The power cord is not long enough to do this well.

I challenged the a Lupine Tesla salesman to compare at the Finnish night champs, but he only wanted to compete with Betty (!).

I agree thet it probably quite far from 900 Lumen. I also agree that the battery pack is a bit too big. I could do well with 1.5 h at full power.

You can by acessories here. An extension cable (or a y-cable to carry two lamps) seems appropriate.

There´s been an on-going discussion this fall about this DealExtreme lamp and possibilities to use/adapt it also in Sweden (alternativet.nu).

Here are some instructions (in Swedish) how to do it.

Test photos from earlier tests between different lamps - both commercial products and home-made - are here. New tests should be on their way according to what´s written on the web page.

PS. I ordered one myself, but haven´t received it yet. Thanks for the advice on water-proofing the battery. Hope to get some assistance from the originator of the instructions and test above to put everything together...

Have had one on order since early Oct. Status shows it's now in transit via Hong Kong Post. May have in time to show at Blue Hills Traverse -- or T-day.

Ken, would love to see it at BHT.
Every time I think about getting a lamp, something newer comes along, so I still use my old Petzl Zoom........

mesp >> As far as I understand this is exactly the same lamp - acquired from DX? - packaged a bit differently and including the head-belt.

I just picked up a one meter extension cord from GeoManGear. Great service from him. Wearing the battery on my belt now, I don't need a better head harness. If I do, GeoManGear just started selling one.

For more info ...

Some beamshots of this lamps version sold by geomanger here
http://acidinmylegs.blogspot.com/2009/11/few-beam-...

and description here
http://acidinmylegs.blogspot.com/2009/11/with-name...

toddp wrote: "The battery pack seems heavy, I am not sure if it state of the art. The accompanying charger says Lithium Ion. Can I substitute a lighter battery pack? How do I waterproof the battery pack?"

I'm wondering the same thing. A lighter battery pack (with correspondingly shorter run-time) might be nice to have. If I am reading the specs right, the battery pack contains 4 Li-Ion 18650 cells, which are nominally 3.7 V apiece. They are packaged with 2 batteries in parallel, connected in series to 2 more batteries in parallel.

Is there anything preventing a user from running two single batteries in series, rather than doubles in series? This would cut the weight (and run-time) by a factor of two. Perhaps running such a battery pack on "high" would draw too much current, though it doesn't look like it. The max current for the lamp is 1000 mA, while the 18650 cells appear capable of currents up to 7000 mA.

Anyway, wondering about buying a battery like the one here:
http://www.batteryspace.com/li-ion18650battery74v2...
for use on a head-strap.

Comments?

I have been using http://www.ayup-lights.com/ for the past couple of years for Adventure Races and 12 / 24 hour Mountain Bike Enduros and they are the best lights I have seen and used for the cost v burn time.

Hope this helps?

The AY-UP lights certainly look interesting, but I doubt that what they state is absolutely true: "We have the lightest systems on the planet..."

I think I found that one light gives a minimum of 340 lumen (but probably not much more either). Does that mean that you actually get 680 with the twin lamps?

Price around $275 US ($290 AUD, 1935 SEK)
(You get a lot of extras in a kit though - straps, cables, pouch, head-band, bicycle mounts...)

Now everyone add to the thread a shout out for their favorite high performance light that costs 3.5 times as much as the Magic Shine!

...On second thought, don't.

bubo you may be right but I wear both the Bike helmet mount and the Head Band setup and don't get any head/neck soreness at all i previously had a Princeton Tec Apex which i thought was good for the price Approx $160 AU untill I got the Ay-Ups... and the Run times are well above what the website states too...

I think battery is fine. Li-ion and it weights as much as li-ion batteries of that capacity typically do. Of course it may not be made out of the best quality cells out there. Battery is originally meant for biking, and bikers possibly like to have longer run times. And weight is not that big issue while biking. I ams ure bmay got it right, you can use the battery like that to save weight.

I think the question is about quality - we don't know how reliable these lights are. Your travel costs to a race may be bigger than price of this light. If you use it for local races and trainings it's fine for sure. But if you travel around the world to race with the lamp it may be bad idea to get the cheapest light you can find.

Two Dots, we know ay ups well and many other brands too. As comparison, Ay-up set with similar output (two dual sets) would cost $500 AU and it would weight quite a bit too. And you would have to put five Apex headlamps around your head, those wuold cost $400 and weight would be over 1 kg.

I think bmay's idea is a good one. The low quality headband may carry the weight of the smaller battery pack just fine. I am going to order the two cell pack from Batteryspace and an over-the-top head harness from Geomanger.

Will the charger that I received with the Magic Shine from DX charge the two cell Lion battery with no problems?

Will the charger that I received with the Magic Shine from DX charge the two cell Lion battery with no problems?

Maybe not. I don't know anything about that charger in particular, but even if it's reasonably well designed, a charger that expects that it will be pumping juice into two parallel cells could be putting out twice as much as a single cell should get. There might be temperature monitoring involved, but on a cheap charger, maybe not. If there is a problem, it wouldn't be too bad, just molten lithium being ejected across the room.

(As I say this, there is a 2x2 cell 18650 lithium battery on my desk at work, hooked up to a bench power supply for charging, which is about the least sophisticated way there is to charge a battery, but the hardware engineer I work with assures me that it's fine, and I'm keeping an eye on the current meter.)

Perhaps Batteryspace can recommend a companion charger.

The main problem with this lamp, is that its a bikers lamp, so its focused. although its 3 times stronger than a standard headlamp, youd be better off using a silva/mila 20 watt lamp.

Did a few tests with the Silva 20W against this lamp.

From 1m away in the centre of the beam the Silva is 1.1 kLux and the Moonshine is 3.2 kLux. But if you measure it at one meter distance at 10* then the Lux drops to 170 for each of them...

toddp, The Magicshine charger (shown in the photo on dealextreme) shows an output of 8.4V, 1000 mA. The batteryspace.com battery pack shows a recommended charge rate of 1000 mA (2000 mA max). Looks like a match.

todpp, you should have li-ion cell protection. It kicks in when battery voltage is too low or too high and prevents cells from damage when you accidentaly mix polarity.

Charger also monitors battery packs voltage and stops charging when max voltage reached but usually cell protection kicks in first.

You have 2 options:
1) use 2 li-ion cells with overcharge/overdischarge protection built in each cell and make pack of them.

2) use pack built from simple li-ion cells w/o protection but utilising seperate protection board.

If you care about your battery pack then better is to have charger with lower mA output and charge your cells longer. 1000mA bundled with sku.29489 is ok, but that one from sku.25149 rated at 1.8A is quite a lot. Battery pack will be charged quicker but it will heat up significally and packs life will be shorter.

For my IBlaastII LED head I built battery pack from 2 sets of these (protected each cell) http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.3287 , bought charger http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1251 to charge individually each cell and check their condition with voltmeter when needed. Bought excelent holder and pouch from this guy http://www.turboferret.co.uk/. So you dont need to solder cells and can quickly find and replace if one goes bad. During everyday usage I charge all pack at once with different charger like that one which comes with Magicshine.

After doing a couple of long runs with the Magic Shine, I noticed that the green LED on the switch changed to red. I assumed that meant that the battery was low. The light was delivered with no owner's manual so I am left to guess or consult with you guys.

With other battery systems, I know it is better to discharge the battery completely before recharging, so assuming Li-ion is the same, I left the light turned on and hung it on the wall. Within 20 minutes it had discharged completely. It that the proper way to take care of this battery?

One thing that surprised me while I was discharging the battery was the heat the lamp generated. It was too hot to touch. What is the normal operating temperature of a light like this?

Note that some lights designed for bike use are assumed to be moving at a reasonable clip to facilitate cooling (Dinotte lights come to mind) and that it is recommended to turn them off if not moving for any length of time. For that reason I'd probably avoid discharging it by just hanging it in one place for any length of time. Just my gut feeling on the matter...

I would not fully discharge lithium-ion or lithium-poly cells. Anything below 3V per cell is potentially harmful.

You generate quite a bit less heat on the low setting. It's still really bright. I'd save the high for when you really need something extra. Heat is bad for the led. As pointed out, you won't dissipate it fast enough if you're stationary, or even running slow. For night skiing, at cold temps, it might be different.

Like the light so far. Took 4 weeks for delivery, but can't beat the cost.

As pointed out, you won't dissipate it fast enough if you're stationary, or even running slow.

This is not in the realm of theory, but fact?

So you are saying that I should not run the Magic Shine on high unless it is X degrees below freezing or else I am moving X miles per hour through the air?

What values for X, I wonder.

If don't follow this advice, what will happen?

The aura of the Magic Shine is dimming...

Do expensive lights have this weakness?

Rule of thumb is not to let it get too hot to touch, easy enough to test while you are out running if your going slowly up a big hill or have managed to get so lost your standing around just feel it and see how warm or hot it is.

I would not expect this to be an issue with even moderate airflow of just running very slowly / walking briskly and < 20C ambient tempreture. A higher ambient will need more airflow.

If you let it get too hot you are shortening the leds life it will get dimmer with age quicker if you are running it hot.

As has been said you should not dileberatly run the battery down there are no memory effects and there are potential problems if you realy let it go low but is should protect itself but best not to rely on this if you do not have to. The other thing with the battery is that for long term storage do not charge it fully up first it is best stored half charged in a cool dry place.

I think the Tesla dims when it gets too hot as a way of protecting the LED. I'm not sure if the knock-off version includes that feature or not.

I've got a Tesla and Mary has the knock-off version. I'm really impressed with the copy. It isn't quite as well made, but it is basically the same light at an amazing price.

I hope a relatively inexpensive light inspires more people to take up night orienteering.

anyone tested run time on low on this light? I keep seeing spec's for run time on high, but as kadley pointed out, its bright enough for most things at low settings - so how long can one go - all night?

DO NOT fully discharge the cells. That will not be good for them. In fact, this is not recommended for any cell chemistry, despite the folklore.

clint -- once I start skiing with the light, I'll have it on for an hour or two at a time. Will see how long it lasts at medium. My expectation is it will be good for an overnight run at a rogaine.

Prior experience has taught me to waterproof all connections and the battery pack first, and to not abuse the light gauge wiring. The circuit boards do not like water.

Bought some connectors today at Baynesville Electronics to extend the very short power cable down to my pocket.