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As the last glimpses of autumn sunshine begin to fade into the long dark nights of winter, those athletic gadget freak readers who avidly insist on cycling to work everyday are presented with a potentially dangerous problem. When using a vehicle as fundamentally fragile as a bicycle it is incredibly important to both be seen and be able to see when travelling home at 6pm on a dark windy night sometime in late November.
Although bike lights are by no means a new invention and have been used successfully for years, the rapid evolution in LED design means increasingly more powerful and more durable lights can be manufactured.
Enter three bike light hobbyists from Australia who have taken particular advantage of this recent surge in LED design to create their own ultra-bright and ultra-durable light, dubbed the Min-T.
The use of three high power Seoul SSC P4 LEDs, which are rated 240lm at one amp, gives an output brightness of 720lm per light. This rating easily ranks in amongst that of most HID (high intensity discharge) headlights and can boast a bulb life of over 50,000 hours, absolutely staggering when considering a good HID lamp will give you around 200 hours at the same brightness.
One clear disadvantage of having this much power packed into such a small casing is that the heat dissipated will be considerable. The designers have taken this into consideration and explain the design on their website, www.cncdelite.com
"The 'one piece' CNC design is the KEY to efficient thermal regulation. As the LEDs are attached to the same piece of metal as the outside housing, you have a DIRECT thermal path for the heat to dissipate."
There has always been one great foreseeable downside with LED lights and that is that they are quite expensive, however you could expect to see prices drop further as the advances in the technology continue.
This homemade example is not that cheap and can only be described for the real biking enthusiast, one who still insists on cycling home in -4, nevertheless it is still a great achievement. It shows, to everyone who is interested, the power and advantages of LED technology and how well and, dare I say it, simply it can be implemented into everyday objects.
If you want to get your hands on this custom made bike light, with new digital controller coming soon, you'll have to send off to Australia, however judging by the beamshots (see an example below) on the website it'll be well worth the wait!
Tom Wilson
Comments (7)
COOL!!!
Posted by teddy hedenquist | November 9, 2008 4:54 PM
Posted on November 9, 2008 16:54
Why do commercial (Halfords) LED bike lights only have 3 settings: bright, flashing, and dim, and you have to remove the batteries to actually turn them off?
I know several people have the same problem.
Posted by Jeff Cousins | November 11, 2008 11:33 AM
Posted on November 11, 2008 11:33
I got fed up with spending fortunes on replacement batteries but thought that the price of decent LED lamps was outrageous (I've tried cheap ones and they are useless, my colour blind friend can't tell whether I'm coming or going).
So, I bought a cheap, "own brand", filament lamp from the supermarket and converted it. A cluster of four HB white LED's in place of the bulb and a tiny boost converter fitted neatly into the casing after a bit of judicious filing. Hey presto a bright white lamp that just goes on and on. Not as bright as the Min-T perhaps, but then I don't need it in London.
I'm now looking at fitting in a battery charger so that I can convert to rechargeables.
Posted by John Scrivens | November 13, 2008 9:10 AM
Posted on November 13, 2008 09:10
Yes I have LED cycle lamps and they are brighter and much more reliable then the old filament types. However there is a new problem on the cycle path, other cyclists with super bright lamps occasionally dazzle me! It's worse than car headlamps for at least these have been fitted by the maker with the correct alignment of 3.5 deg down and to the nearside. Cyclist forget that the same lighting regulations apply to bicycles and seem to point them deliberately straight ahead.
Posted by Ian Cooper | November 13, 2008 9:29 AM
Posted on November 13, 2008 09:29
I second the comment about dazzle from bright bike lights, both as a cyclist AND a car driver. There needs to be some serious work done to define the beam pattern from these lights just as motorbike headlights, so that they CAN be sensibly aligned. The existing simple cone of light would have to be set too low to prevent dazzle to be of best use to the cyclist behind it.
Posted by Chris | February 20, 2009 10:54 AM
Posted on February 20, 2009 10:54
As a cyclist, driver and part-time bike light maker; can I third the comment about dazzle?
Achieving the sharp beam 'cut-off' required between dazzling light above the horizontal and useful light below is probably impossible with the 1mm die and 20mm collimators typically used in bike lights.
It doesn't matter how the optics are designed, it is governed by laws of nature.
I am guessing here because I don't understand the physics, but through experience I suspect an optical system of 40 or even 50mm in diameter would be required with 1mm die.
LEDs designed for car headlights (certain Osram Ostars) have four or five 1mm die in a horizontal row specifically to give the following, large, optics a chance to achieve a legal cut-off.
The increased use of the four die (in a 2x2 square) Cree MC-E led in bike lights with small collimators is only going to make matters worse.
'Alice'
Posted by 'Alice' | February 20, 2009 11:26 AM
Posted on February 20, 2009 11:26
HI all,
Just been talking to a German mate, they have the laws concerning beam cutoff, turns out, that people in germany just tilt them up a bit to hit drives eyes... I guess for them its all about begin seen as well as seeing the road...
BTW, we now have a smaller & lighter version out...
http://cncdelite/klite5sm.jpg
Check us out
http://cncdelite.com
battery or dynamo driven...
Posted by Ktronik | October 29, 2009 10:05 AM
Posted on October 29, 2009 10:05