On Saturday, January 30, 2016 at 8:45:10 AM UTC-8, Mojo wrote: > > Lately I mated a Luxos U to an SP hub that allows me to charge my phone > during the day and has a handlebar switch, and an amazingly wide and > consistent beam. The Edulux now seem adequate but less than ideal. I > appreciate the SP hub for its performance, price, and simple light > attachment compared to Son.
I started using the same combination nearly two years ago, and it's superlative. In the city, I've had drivers flash their high beams at me on the street, even when I'm using the lowbeams. I've certainly got the angle low enough; I suspect some of them are flashing not because they're blinded, but because they're spooked to see that bright a light coming from a bicycle. On Saturday, January 30, 2016 at 10:16:55 AM UTC-8, Doug Williams wrote: > > Even dyno systems benefit from a battery so that the lights, etc. can run > when the bike is stopped. > Yes, and no. The Luxos U powers its standlight with a lithium battery, instead of the capacitor used in older standlight headlamp systems (and in generator taillights). A capacitor is fine for a standlight; it generally drains after 3-4 minutes, providing enough residual power to keep the headlight/taillight lit at a stoplight, after which the system recharges when the rider pedals away. B&M/Peter White says the battery is there to provide a filtered, even power supply to external devices attached to the USB charger. Unfortunately, the battery makes the system much more difficult to troubleshoot. In September, a broken front brake bolt damaged something in my Luxos, as my rack assembly/light mounting sagged down. Because the battery got enough trickle charge from the hub to maintain a low level of power, it took me several weeks to figure out that the damage was to the Luxos, not to the SP generator. I could turn on the headlight and get a few minutes of light, and then it would shut itself off - often in dangerous situations. And the taillight never had enough juice to light after the incident. But since the headlight would turn on (at reduced light output), I kept flailing around swapping replaceable cables (generator to headlight, headlight to taillight) instead of blaming the headlight itself. If the standlight worked off a capacitor, the capacitor would have drained in a few minutes - and that would have been that. As it was, I had to unplug the hub from the Luxos entirely, and run it for a week before the Luxos' battery drained completely. I then dug out the wussy Spanninga that the Luxos had replaced, and found that the hub was fine. On Saturday, January 30, 2016 at 10:34:20 AM UTC-8, Eric Norris wrote: > > Some dynos may struggle to run the lights *and* the USB charger at the > same time, but the workaround there is to charge stuff during the day while > your lights are off. > Exactly B&M's recommendation for the Luxos U. Hub generators won't power anything more than a light because that's the purpose for which they're designed. If they put out more power, they'd fry out the lights. The fact that they can *also* power charging systems is an add-on to the existing infrastructure, in the same way that Internet service is an add-on to your cable provider's system, which is intended to pump the Home Shopping Network, UFC pay-per-view fights and Ryan Gosling movies into your house. The Internet is just an extra the cable company can toss onto the cable they've already installed, for which they can tack on an extra fee. If you want to pawer *stuff*, you can use solar panels <http://www.voltaicsystems.com>, with all the limiting considerations that go with them. They're available at a variety of different power output levels/voltages. As long as you're using a bike-powered generator, you're going to have to deal with the limitations designed into that generator: That its primary purpose is to power 6V lighting systems. At least, that's what most modern bottle/hub generators are designed to do. Peter "horses for courses" Adler Berkeley, CA/USA -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
