Solidlights upgrade (DIY)

[GrandMaster Flash]

Clearly, the Solidlights are just a pair of high output emitters with a couple of basic plastic lenses to try and put the glare more or less in the same place.  ....  If Martin Jones could design a reflector to properly focus the beam, it would be truly awesome.

Too right ... The design of LED lights is all down to the reflectors (or lack of them).  Cateye have taken the bull by the horns and have one of thier lights that has the LED pointing into the lamp and all the beam is reflection.  In this way they can control the beam.  Any LED light that uses knowledge and design gained from filament bulbs is always going to be poor as LEDs are not a point source.  It is taking time for manufacturers to get thier heads round this.  It is coming slowly and the more LED lamps there are sold the better the designs become.

Charlotte - thanks for the comparison report.  Now all I need is for the postman to deliver my new LEDs for my light.

[GrandMaster Flash]

Armed with all the great knowledge from this thread, I thoroughly recommend having a crack at it because you'll end up with pretty much cutting edge-lighting again.

Seconded.  Just completed my upgrade and I am staggered by the difference, even uper streetlights.

I found that the 'bars' across the bottom of the hexagonal lens holders needed to be filed down at each end.  This is mentioned further up the thread but it took a while for me to work out what to file.  The mouting (white) for the 'emitter' (the yellow square in the centre) fouls these bars and they filing down to allow the hexagons to sit down properly.

My thanks to Andrew_s for the original writeup and all the others who have contributed to this thread.

[paulk]

Thanks all. I upgraded my Solidlights and used it last Saturday. It is a big improvement. The upgrade was quite simple, the only thing was finding out how to file the lenses.

[alexb]

I haven't upgraded my lights yet, but I will also be experimenting with silvering the back of the lenses to reduce the light spill and improve the light focussing.
If this works, then I can do these easily enough for other people. However, the coating will be very thin (20nm) and consequently very fragile. I'll have to think about how they can be transported.

[Chris S]

Maybe we should have a separate thread for the Factory XB2 upgrades, but at least here, everything Solidlight upgradish is together like.

Just back from my first run out with the XB2. I decided on the upgrade when the (out of warranty) unit quit recently, probably as a result of the cable coming adrift.

Anyway - the factory upgrade makes the Solidlight much more like the Cyo, but in soft focus. There's still much more light bleed upwards so you can see branches of trees as you go under them. Can't really comment on whether this annoys oncoming motons because in 30km I only saw one! That's the wonder of night time Norfolk I guess.

£70 would have been expensive on it's own I suppose; but as I was facing a £25 bill for an out of warranty repair - it made sense.

The state-of-the-art LEDs all give the same result more or less - a feeling of Ownership of the Road at night.

[andrew_s]

One thing I noticed is there is now a slight drag with the unit switched off - I'm not sure that was there before (certainly my old Schmidt/Lumotec combo had zero drag when switched off).

A Schmidt hub can generate lots of volts when there's nothing connected to it - up to 50V.
To stop this voltage blowing any components in the Solidlight when it's first turned on, there's a big resistor across the input terminals that takes enough power to keep the voltage under control.
A light bulb has enough thermal inertia that the voltage drops before anything blows (usually).

If the drag worries you, disconnect the plug, and only reconnect it when stationary.

[Greenbank]

If the drag worries you, disconnect the plug, and only reconnect it when stationary.

I always try and remember to disconnect mine when it gets to daylight on an Audax.

I think the fiddly plug/connectors on the Solidlights were specifically chosen to prevent one even attempting to reconnect it whilst moving.

*zap*

I'll be sending mine off to be done next weekend in time for the Elenith (otherwise I'll give the dual Ixon IQs a whirl).

I could probably do a hamfisted upgrade myself (I have done some soldering in the past) and think that £70 is a bit steep, but my Solidlights have served me well and I think they're fantastic so I'd like to help support Chris by getting them done properly (they could do with a checkup too, hopefully he'll replace the mounting bit as it doesn't look too pretty being taped on to the bike).

[alexb]

So now we all have these old Solidlight LEDs and lenses, does anyone have any good ideas about what we could do with them?

I'm wondering if I could build myself a fancy LED torch, or even another basic LED dynamo lamp.

[Greenbank]

I'll be sending mine off to be done next weekend in time for the Elenith (otherwise I'll give the dual Ixon IQs a whirl).

Finally got roundto sending mine off yesterday. Should be back in time for the BCM.

[Greenbank]

Received today in the post. Very quick turnaround.

New mount as the old one was very loose and I had to secure it with electrical tape after it bounced its way down the road on the Severn Across last year; amongst the other work done the work sheet noted "Light covered in sticky goo. Clean off."

Will carry a B&M Ixon on the BCM just in case (It's under 100g without batteries) otherwise I can't wait to see what 2.5 times the light output will look like in real life.

[Tiger]

Been using my upgrade for recent months on the commute. Lots of abuse from everyone about it being so bright. Oh well. At least I am seen.

[Greenbank]

Been using my upgrade for recent months on the commute. Lots of abuse from everyone about it being so bright. Oh well. At least I am seen.

Angle it down more. Less of a problem on an upright though.

http://www.greenbank.org/bikes/tempo/tempo6.jpg shows the angle I have mine mounted at. Haven't use the upgraded one yet but I'm guessing it will need pointing down more.

[andrew_s]

There's now a new level of upgrade LED available for retrofit

Cree XP-G R5 bin on 20STR, £4.25 + p&p

350 lumen vs 240 lumen for the XR-E used for the previous upgrade.
There's apparently also an S2 bin version "imminent" that will reach 400 lumen at 1A.

Also the next bin dimmer from closer to home
CREE XP-G R4 on Star PCB by LED-TECH.de

[Tewdric]

Would a pair of these work does anyone know?


   DealExtreme: $17.68 Cree XLamp MC-E K0-WG 370~700-Lumen LED Emitter on 20mm Star Board (MCE-WG-K0)

[Simon Galgut]

There's now a new level of upgrade LED available for retrofit

Cree XP-G R5 bin on 20STR, £4.25 + p&p

350 lumen vs 240 lumen for the XR-E used for the previous upgrade.
There's apparently also an S2 bin version "imminent" that will reach 400 lumen at 1A.

Also the next bin dimmer from closer to home
CREE XP-G R4 on Star PCB by LED-TECH.de

But are there any decent optics available yet?

[Simon Galgut]

Would a pair of these work does anyone know?


   DealExtreme: $17.68 Cree XLamp MC-E K0-WG 370~700-Lumen LED Emitter on 20mm Star Board (MCE-WG-K0)

No. As in no, they won't work.

[Manotea]

Huh huh, the move to GMT and Dark Winter was just about inspiring me to finally get round to doing my upgrade, but if a +70% upgrade is imminent maybe ought to hold fire....

[andrew_s]

But are there any decent optics available yet?

As far as I can make out, the existing optics designed for the Cree XP are 21.6mm diameter, rather than the 20mm of the existing Solidlight optics. There's room in the housing, but the screw holes for clamping down the star PCBs are set for 20mm, so some bodging would be required.

[edit]
Carclo 20mm triple (for 3 leds on one star)
Carclo 10mm square
Ledil 21.6mm square
Ledil 10.5mm round
Ledil 21.6mm round

Mix 1x10mm and 1x21.6mm?

Alternatively, just get a selection of other lenses and try out what gives a decent beam. You've got the existing upgrade lenses, and may still have the original Solidlight lenses.

[Treewheeler]

Will one of you bold fellows do mine for a keen price...?
 I'm a tree surgeon not an 'electrickery hexpert'
  Tuggo

[iddu]

Would a pair of these work does anyone know?


   DealExtreme: $17.68 Cree XLamp MC-E K0-WG 370~700-Lumen LED Emitter on 20mm Star Board (MCE-WG-K0)

No. As in no, they won't work.

Care to expand (for a numpty, so Sparky 101)?

Given that the LEDs can be driven in parallel or series, individually or grouped, I can see that trying to draw 4 x 126+ mA in one parallel operation may pretty soon exceed capacity of, say, a SON, but does it scale in a linear fashion - if the specsheet gives ~100 lux/led @ 350ma per LED, does it come out at 100*125/350 (i.e.  ~ 4 * 35lux, not much different to a single P5)?

If wired in series, so they all see (say) 500mA from a SON, what does "Forward voltage is added up" mean in practical terms - nothing until speed is high enough to drive all 4 LEDs in the chain?

[Simon Galgut]

The MCE is, effectively, four XRE in a single package that can be wired in any combination of serial or parallel you fancy. As we only have 500ma max to play with then the only reasonable possibilities are 2S2P or 4S1P. 2S2P requires ~7.2v (@250ma) : 4S1P requires ~14.4vv (@500ma)

Then remember that the solidlights uses two LEDs and you have to double those figures. So, in reality, the only possible setup is two MCE both wired 2S2P, requiring a total of 14.4v each element being driven at 250ma. At these figures, the light output would be unlikely to exceed that of two XRE and you would have to find some small decent optics and the cost of two MCE is significantly greater than two XRE and there would be noticeable flicker until around 12mph and full power would not be available until around 16mph.

Having said all that, my home made lighting system uses three XRE in the front lamp and one in the rear lamp all in series (so ~14.4v @ 500ma) and works very nicely, but uses a bunch of electronics to get the most out of the dynamo (SON) and does very little until 10mph (but my average is 17mph so that's OK). See Dynamo LED Light Systems for Bicycles (electronic circuits) for loads more detail.

[iddu]

Then remember that the solidlights uses two LEDs and you have to double those figures.

Thanks.  I was thinking more on modding a Cyo (with no rear) using an MC-E, so the doubling up for a Solidlights wouldn't apply.

Mmmm, so 4S0P config at +10mph is likely to give ~400 lux - scrummy

Suspect a carefully Dremmel'd star mounting would be required to fit in housing, but it could be worth experimenting for £20...

See Dynamo LED Light Systems for Bicycles (electronic circuits) for loads more detail.

Off to read

[Simon Galgut]

Mmmm, so 4S0P config at +10mph is likely to give ~400 lux - scrummy

Maybe 400 lumens. NOT lux. Big difference.

[iddu]

Maybe 400 lumens. NOT lux. Big difference.

Oops, correct, me bad..

[Wowbagger]

Thread resurrection.

My Solidlights, which are now approaching their 8th year of use (less since the upgrade), are decidedly the worse for wear. I think that the right LED has almost no light coming out of it and the left one is not so good as it was. It's useable even at low speed, but given that people were upgrading these bits quite some time ago, I'm thinking that it might be worth a pop. I could, and I'm tempted to, buy another front light, given that there are lots of brighter ones on the market these days, but it seems worth trying to fix the Solidlights again, given that (if it works) it can be done pretty cheaply.