# MagicShine 1400 Deconstructed



## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

XPE pod outer diameter








MS900 vs MS1400








MS900 vs MS1400








MS900 vs MS1400








Pod ends threaded and removable.








Optics/reflector P7 retainer ring interal and external threaded. Reflector rim threaded and screws
into retainer ring. 








XPE optic








XPE optic








XPE optic retainer ring inner diameter








MS900 vs MS1400

















XPE Pod, ring, slug, xpe








XPE Pod, ring, slug, xpe








Remote Switch Aluminum Body. Cap housing Aluminum threaded. Seperate driver component








3x XPG Carclo 10417 860mA








MS900 P7 High








MS1400 Dual XPE only High








MS1400 P7 only High








MS1400 P7 and dual XPE High


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## OldMTBfreak (Apr 8, 2006)

Thanks, Texas, I wuz wondering about that mouse eared light. I enjoyed the disassemble. How was soldering, swarf, your over all impression.


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

No swarf. Solder was first rate. Thing is extremely well sealed. Thermal paste was a little thin on the xpe slug. Must desolder to remove and add more paste. PITA. Probably not necessary, but I already had the thing apart.
It is much more complicated than the MS900. 
Body seems to be single unit cast aluminum. Pods connect via 18 mm by 2.5 mm truss. Not going to break them off very easily.


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## yetibetty (Dec 24, 2007)

Thanks odtexas for doing all those pics, it does look like good value and not as big as I thought it would be. Is the inductor bonded to the pcb or just soldered with no suport like in the 900?


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## znomit (Dec 27, 2007)

Thanks very much for this! Any measurements of drive current?


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## GEOMAN (May 30, 2006)

Great thread and effort! Very impressed.

Appreciate it, 

Geo


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Yeti - Inductor is about twice as big and is still unsupported. A blob of silicone might be nice for support. It does feel alot more solid than the MS900 inductor. 

Znomit - Forgot to grab currents when I had it all apart. I am hoping to switch out the XPE optics so will be taking it apart again real soon. Will get current readings at that time if someone doesn't beat me to it.

No worries Geoman. This light is very well thought out. Quality control is top notch. Looks like a real PITA to assemble and wire. Heads and shoulders over the MS900.

Mount is different material/plastic, and design of mount looks stronger.

Only shortcomings was small amount of thermal paste on XPE stars.
Allen set screws on bottom of pods, control pod rotation, both stripped out.
The cast aluminum is just not strong enough for that few number of thread. Not a big deal if you aren't planning on taking the thing apart alot. But I could see that maybe someone might recieve one with the pods being a little loose in their collars and the customer would be unable to tighten. I just pushed some JB Weld into the set screw hole, let it set a little, and then put the set screws in through the JB Weld. Holding just fine.
Water can get in through the small opening between the main body and the XPE pods where the wires leave main body and run to XPE stars. Only way to truly seal it would be to silicone the small rubber elbows which the wires are run in. 
If it wasn't for those little wire pass throught this light would be water tight to a couple of meters. All optics and pods have o-ring seals. 
Last thing would bet the star retaining rings are plastic. MS900 used alumimum rings that threaded in to hold the stars down. Was mildly surprised to see plastic ones in the light. Not a problem for your average user of course, but the aluminum ones would aid in thermal transfer from the front surface of the star to the light body.
I still think this light has more than enough surface/transfer area to keep it cool.

Fit and Finish is excellent. I was impressed. Like the sealed battery unit as well.
And it is the same battery as the MS900. Just a new and improved housing.


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## GEOMAN (May 30, 2006)

odtexas said:


> No worries Geoman. This light is very well thought out. Quality control is top notch. Looks like a real PITA to assemble and wire. Heads and shoulders over the MS900.
> 
> Fit and Finish is excellent. I was impressed. Like the sealed battery unit as well.
> And it is the same battery as the MS900. Just a new and improved housing.


We had to establish a new production line to handle the added complexities of the Magicshine 1400 assembly. QC is being watched very carefully.

Geo


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## lidarman (Jan 12, 2004)

What is the capacity of that battery pack?


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Battery is a 7.4 v lithium ion 2p2s. Capacity probably around 4400 mAh if using cheap 18650s.
Best guess on optics are the Carclo 10197, Luxeon 1 20mm. 
Can someone confirm height of those Carclo optics. Can't find a data sheet on it. I have never used them in my builds and don't have any on hand to measure either.


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## mojojojoaf (Sep 9, 2008)

Spill and penetration look great on that last photo- not bad at all.


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## znomit (Dec 27, 2007)

mojojojoaf said:


> Spill and penetration look great on that last photo- not bad at all.


With just the P7 on it doesn't seem to have the punch of the 900. Is it a different reflector?


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## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

odtexas,

Very nice initial dissection of the light.

A few things I'm curious about, and some requests.

Are there separate drivers for the XPEs? The could be hiding in the little black ring the XPE thermal clad board was attached to.

What gauge wire runs into the main light body. The original magicshine used something like 22 gauge which is kind of thin, in my opinion. Can you tell if the wire is PVC or Silicone coated? Based on where the mode switch connects to the cable, I'd guess there are at least 3 and maybe 4 separate wires in the cable that runs into the main body of the light. My hunch is they are using thin wire again. Easy to break, and fatigues easily after a lot of flexing.

It looks like there is only one inductor on the main electronics board. Can you tell if that board is only for driving the P7 or does it drive the XPEs as well?

Does the battery come apart easily? I'm curious what the protection circuit board looks like and if the Ii-Ion cells look like they are good quality.

Request #1: If your camera has a macro function, could you take a close up of both sides of the main electronics board. I'm curious to see if they used the same 6 pin driver chip with an external mosfet transistor, like they used in the original magicshine.

Request #2: If you haven't siliconed down your inductor yet, could you bend it a bit one way and then the other when taking pictures of that side of the board? It would make more detail visible.

Request #3: If there are separate drives for the XPEs a picture of one of those would be nice.

Oh, don't use something like silicone window caulking to mount your inductor. As it cures it gives off a vinegar-like smell that comes from acetic acid. The acid can eat away your circuit board. Use a neutral-cure silicone if you can fine one. Something that claims it is good for coating electronics is best.

Or if you intend to use some artica alumina expoxt adhesive to make better thermal connections inside the light, that would also probably work fine for holding the inductor in place.

Thanks much,

Mark


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Znomit -
Reflectors are different. 








Left is MS1400 right is MS900
MS1400 15.3 mm at star base external diameter to 33.21 mm at flange base
MS900 17.94 mm at star base external diameter to 35.85 mm at flange base
Both 19.75 mm high
mA gets interesting though
MS900 high 2.36 amps P7
MS1400 high 1.95 amps P7 .12 amps low
MS1400 XPE high .62 amps .02 low
MS1400 XPE and P7 high, all on, XPE .52 amps, P7 1.71 amps
Interesting isn't it??


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## lidarman (Jan 12, 2004)

....................


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

mhahn -

Are there separate drivers for the XPEs? The could be hiding in the little black ring the XPE thermal clad board was attached to.

Can't tell if there are two drivers in there or not. The P7 star and driver are stacked together and can only be removed if all wires to both XPE pods are removed. There is room in there for components on the back side of the board and all wires go into the space between the back of the P7 star and driver.

What gauge wire runs into the main light body.

20 or 22 gauge silicone.
Wire running to XPE pods probably 28 or 30 gauge. Very thin and easy to break. Another reason to not recommend taking it apart unless you are careful and good at soldering.

Based on where the mode switch connects to the cable, I'd guess there are at least 3 and maybe 4 separate wires in the cable that runs into the main body of the light. My hunch is they are using thin wire again. Easy to break, and fatigues easily after a lot of flexing.

Can't tell how many wires come out of the main cable since it exits into that small space I didn't get into.

It looks like there is only one inductor on the main electronics board. Can you tell if that board is only for driving the P7 or does it drive the XPEs as well?
Back side of board is a mystery.

Does the battery come apart easily? I'm curious what the protection circuit board looks like and if the Ii-Ion cells look like they are good quality.

Yes. The housing is actually aluminum. Threaded end cap. Guessing same exact battery as MS900









Request #1: If your camera has a macro function, could you take a close up of both sides of the main electronics board. I'm curious to see if they used the same 6 pin driver chip with an external mosfet transistor, like they used in the original magicshine.

Top of driver only. 2 black rectangle components have MCC SK548 on them.

Request #2: If you haven't siliconed down your inductor yet, could you bend it a bit one way and then the other when taking pictures of that side of the board? It would make more detail visible.

What I can get of the board 

































Request #3: If there are separate drives for the XPEs a picture of one of those would be nice.

Couldn't get that one.

Hope some of that helps.:thumbsup:


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## znomit (Dec 27, 2007)

odtexas said:


> MS1400 XPE and P7 high, all on, XPE .52 amps, P7 1.71 amps
> Interesting isn't it??


So each XPE is putting out 160lm and the P7 500lm ...

So ~800lm vs 670 for the 900. Bigger porkies. :nono:


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## yetibetty (Dec 24, 2007)

There is quite a lot going on in that switch, does this thing have lots of strobe modes?


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

No strobe modes. 4 little colored leds. 
First push XPE pods on
Second push P7 on XPE off
Third push all on.
Holding button down in any mode causes gradual dimming. 
Neat feature if you are into that sort of thing.


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

Nice pull down Odtexas , thanks , man you must have been fast getting hold of one .

battery pack looks a huge improvement .

It is not to my liking the mickey mouse ears but I guess it will sell in its thousands like its brother .

:madmax: cant they make a light that does what it says on the tin lumen wise .

We should have a special section on here for comercial light strip downs and testing maybe that would scare the big boys in to telling the truth . 

bit of extra space could you slot in a small driver and push the xpes harder


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## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

odtexas,

Thank you very much for the pictures. You've saved me from wasting $90 and ordering a litehead one from the SingleTrack store. I wanted to see if the new light had a better designed driver than the magicshine.

Your first picture of the P7 driver has convinced me that they are using nearly the same circuit that drove the magicshine light. The driver chip is most likely a sm5241, I can make out "524*" on the 6 pin chip visible in the bottom center of your first photo. Can you confirm that the part is labeled 5241?

The transistor labeled Q1, on the PCB to the right of the SM5241, is most likely a mosfet in a SOT23-3 package. The magicshine used an 8 pin SOIC. I've used SOT23-3 mosfets in LED drivers I've designed, so that might be OK. But it is typically easier to find a low Ron (on resistance) mosfet in a SOIC package. A low Ron mosfet will not get as hot as one that has a higher Ron. Low Ron mosfets are typically more expensive than high Ron ones. Have you tried holding your finger on Q1 while the light is running? Be careful, it may be hot enough to burn you. If it feels painfully hot, it probably won't last a long time. It will run hotter the lower your battery voltage is.

And to the left of the SM5241are two resistors labeled R100 and R500. They sure look like 0805 sized resistors, and can't be rated for more than 1/8 a watt (could be as low as 1/10 a watt). Gee, that's the same size and same value resistors used in the magicshine. So this light has the same problem. These resistors, used to sense current, have the same amount of current flowing thru the two of them wired in parallel as the P7 has running thru it. Power is calculated by the formula Current squared times Resistance. Assuming they run the P7 at something close to 2.5 amps, the resistor labeled R100 has to dissipate something like 1/2 a watt, and it's only rated for 1/8 of a watt. It will burn out soon enuff. If you are handy with a soldering iron, you can replace these with two 1206 or 1210 sized resistors, maybe around 0.16 ohms.

It would be interesting to see what's on the other side of the PCB to see if they do any kind of thermal regulation of the LED's brightness. It'd be nice to dim the LED when the temperature gets too high. But given that folks on this forum have dissed the magicshine driver's electrical design and the manufacturer has made the same mistakes they made before, I very much doubt they do any thermal regulation.

My guess is they are still cutting corners where most folks won't see it. They have some new cosmetic features, like the aluminum can to hold the Li-Ion cells. The nice thing about that is if they still use low quality cells and one catches fire, the aluminum can may help contain the fire. My impression is it's the same innards as the magicshine, with a slightly improved user interface, and a different beam pattern because of the 2 XPEs.

These new lights come with the same 90 day warranty the magicshine did. Hey if it was a quality light the manufacturer would offer a longer warranty.

Mark


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Troutie. 
The lumen thing is aggravating. Just part of the game. This light is bright and beam pattern looks good. Great light for getting into biking on the cheap. 
Would never consider putting this on my helmet just due to its size. 
But then again it only seems big because of the little lights that many of us build here.


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

One chip does have 5241B on it.
Q1 does get hot. So many burns from soldering though has desensitized me so I may not be a good judge of "painfully" hot. Unless the flesh sizzles I tend not to notice anymore. 
Major improvements over the MS900, both in quality and beam pattern. 
The battery container is also really nice. 
Just put this in the same category as a low end mountain bike. Gets the job done and gives you an idea if you enjoy the experience enough to get something a lot nicer.


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## OldMTBfreak (Apr 8, 2006)

Yep, I get a kick out of "painfully hot". My finger tips are so seared by years of holding parts while soldering, I have seen the puffs of smoke before the I feel the pain. lol Good write up Texas, thanks again. You SAVED me from having to go buy a 1400 to disassemble. James


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## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

[email protected] said:


> odtexas,
> 
> The transistor labeled Q1, on the PCB to the right of the SM5241, is most likely a mosfet in a SOT23-3 package. The magicshine used an 8 pin SOIC. I've used SOT23-3 mosfets in LED drivers I've designed, so that might be OK. But it is typically easier to find a low Ron (on resistance) mosfet in a SOIC package.
> 
> Mark


Later Magicshine 900's switched from the 8 pin SOIC mosfet to a smaller SOT23-3 mosfet as well. It doesn't have as low of a RDSon as the SOIC part and it does run hotter and makes the driver less efficient.

I'm amazed they won't fix the under spec'ed resistors. It's not like this is really subjective. Any first year EE major could figure this out and the datasheet for the resistor gives very clear guidelines for what is in and out of spec. They aren't even close. What's crazy is the pattern on the PCB board is clearly setup for larger resistors and we're talking about parts that cost less than a penny in quantity. The one good thing about the low drive current on high is the resistors won't be as far out of spec. But they sure are giving up a lot of brightness out of the LEDs.

Of course they haven't seen a lot of warranty issues with a 90 day warranty and this is the kind of problem that could become a serious issue when the lights are a year to two old. They may get away with them running over spec for a while, but why take a chance for something that is so cheap and easy to correct.


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)




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## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

MtbMacgyver said:


> Later Magicshine 900's switched from the 8 pin SOIC mosfet to a smaller SOT23-3 mosfet as well. It doesn't have as low of a RDSon as the SOIC part and it does run hotter and makes the driver less efficient.
> 
> I'm amazed they won't fix the under spec'ed resistors. It's not like this is really subjective. Any first year EE major could figure this out and the datasheet for the resistor gives very clear guidelines for what is in and out of spec. They aren't even close. What's crazy is the pattern on the PCB board is clearly setup for larger resistors and we're talking about parts that cost less than a penny in quantity. The one good thing about the low drive current on high is the resistors won't be as far out of spec. But they sure are giving up a lot of brightness out of the LEDs.
> 
> Of course they haven't seen a lot of warranty issues with a 90 day warranty and this is the kind of problem that could become a serious issue when the lights are a year to two old. They may get away with them running over spec for a while, but why take a chance for something that is so cheap and easy to correct.


Maybe we've been looking at their design standards all wrong. Maybe they know exactly what they are doing!

Make a light cheap enuff that it wipes out your competition. Design it so that it will definitely burn out some critical component AFTER the 90 day warranty period. I mean we know that a well designed LED light, one that doesn't use under spec parts, and regulates the temperature of the LED, should last for what? Tens of thousands of hours. Even somebody who commutes 2 hours a day (unless they work very long hours) will only use the light for half of the year. Let's be pessimistic and say 9 months out of the year. That's at most 3000 hours a year. And those are folks who ride a lot. Most folks who buy these are going to ride what 2 hours a few nights a week for less than half the year. Maybe 1000 hours a year.

You won't get a lot of repeat sales from a customer if they only buy a new light every 10 years. But if you design your light to fail after say 1000 hours, even the hard core commuters won't fry the light till well after their warranty runs out, and most will make it a whole year since they are unlikely to really use a light for 9 months out of the year.

And the lack of thermal regulation, just decreases the lifetime of the LED. But odds are the 0805 resistors or the SOT23-3 mosfet will go zorch long before that. And using a 0.1 and a 0.5 ohm resistor even has a twisted logic to it. The 0.1 will burn out first, and will dim the output, so the user will still have some light, and probably survive long enuff to buy another Magicshine. I mean if you buy a light and it lasts a couple of years before it dies, or suddenly goes real dim, and the light costs 1/4 the price of the next cheapest competitor, you'll probably just buy another cheap light.

If I had a decent power supply in my lab that let you set the current output, I'd be tempted to try over-currenting a bunch of different 0805 0.1 ohm resistors with say around 2 amps. Run the setup on a timer for say an hour, then give the resistors 1/2 an hour to cool off and repeat. Anybody want to set that experiment up? I'll bet if you started tomorrow, you'll find the median date that your resistors burn out is around May 24th.

Wow, if that's what they are doing it is a truly devilish design 

Nah! That couldn't be it. They're probably just trying to save a measly 15 cents on every light they sell by using cheaper crappy parts.

Mark


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## oldassracer (Mar 26, 2009)

*Please upgrade the resistors...*



MtbMacgyver said:


> Later Magicshine 900's switched from the 8 pin SOIC mosfet to a smaller SOT23-3 mosfet as well. It doesn't have as low of a RDSon as the SOIC part and it does run hotter and makes the driver less efficient.
> 
> I'm amazed they won't fix the under spec'ed resistors. It's not like this is really subjective. Any first year EE major could figure this out and the datasheet for the resistor gives very clear guidelines for what is in and out of spec. They aren't even close. What's crazy is the pattern on the PCB board is clearly setup for larger resistors and we're talking about parts that cost less than a penny in quantity. The one good thing about the low drive current on high is the resistors won't be as far out of spec. But they sure are giving up a lot of brightness out of the LEDs.
> 
> Of course they haven't seen a lot of warranty issues with a 90 day warranty and this is the kind of problem that could become a serious issue when the lights are a year to two old. They may get away with them running over spec for a while, but why take a chance for something that is so cheap and easy to correct.


Geoman are you listening? 

I won't buy any Magicshine lights unless this is fixed and I suspect there are others who are not buying either...One might as well buy a light that costs two or even three times as much and lasts more than 2 years than one magicshine which will probably burn out in a year or so. :madman:

Of course, as was pointed out, within 90 days it is unlikely for the magicshine factory to hear of any failures.

Pity- I was about to buy two of these 1400 lights...and suggest them to my riding club for a group buy of 10+ lights. :nono:


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Measured this board at 1.14 amp output.


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## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

*** removed because I was confused about what the picture meant ***


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## tamen00 (Mar 10, 2004)

That is a the DX3256 driver I think... the ones that are like 4 for 6 bucks. I have made a lot of lights out of these drivers, however only about 1 in 4 of them actually work for any length of time.


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Sorry, was interested in component ratings honestly. No EE here, but there is spec and then there is real world application. 
This board isn't out of the MS1400. It is used in many many lights here for years now. Never heard a report of component failure with its use. 
Tamen is correct though that many show up DOA or shortly after being fired up.
I would agree that none of these boards are anywhere near the quality of anything George over at taskled makes.
Point is that the components in the MS1400 and MS900 will do the needed job even if they are out of spec. Only proof of this is the real world use of similar spec'd drivers in DIY lights for years now.
I would recommend this light to anyone interested in getting into biking at night, anyone wanting a second light, or anyone wanting to upgrade from an HID or Halogen.
And no matter how cheap or expensive your lights are, always have a second for backup.

BTW. Its great getting input from the EE types here who know these driver boards and components. Over driving cheap components cuts efficiency and life expectancy. So does over volting halogen bulbs. 
Every system will have its weak point whether its fragile HID bulbs, Hid ballasts, battery fade due to age, charge cycles, cold temperatures. Not to mention catastrophic failure due to crashes.
But for our application here, with the understanding that one should always have a backup, these lights seem to hold up well.


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## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

odtexas said:


> Measured this board at 1.14 amp output.


I'm not following your point. Just because a board is inexpensive doesn't mean it's using improperly spec'ed components that will be more likely to fail. I've never looked at the driver you measured at 1.14 amps, so I don't know if it's a good or bad design. But you can't assume it's a bad design just because it's cheap and some have failed. Most early failures are caused by assembly problems and not by component selection.

Yes, people over-drive halogen bulbs to get more light. But there is a purpose for doing that, it actually improves the light. And that's not actually quite the same thing because bulb makers do a lot of testing at elevated voltages and publish enough data so you can predict the bulb lifespan at elevated voltage.

There is no purpose for driving a resistor over spec and the resistor maker do not publish data that'll let you predict the lifespan when it's driven over spec. So the only benefit is a very tiny cost savings. Just as an experiment, I searched digikey for the cheapest resistors both in the size they are using and a size that would be in spec.

805 1/4 watt resistor - 3 cents at qty 5000
https://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=MCR10EZHJLR10-ND

1206 1/2 watt resistor - 8 cents at qty 5000
https://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=CSR1/20.1FR-ND

So, we're talking 5 cents difference. And either resistor will go on the PCB without any modification. So, I just don't get the reason for using the under spec resistors.

Overall I'm not a Magicshine hater and I've recommended them to lots of friends that want to night ride without spending a lot of money. But I do warn them about the problem areas and will fix the driver for them if they burn out. But, why not make a simple change like this to avoid the possibility of a problem. And I have fixed 2 lights already where the resistors burned out. Both of those cases were because the folks let them get really hot by running them without airflow, but others could start failing with age. Only time will tell.


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

I can't remember any of the EE guys here majorly hate on any product. Critique and dissect, yes. But that is what we do here. :thumbsup: 

Point is we have people now thinking that there are major issues with a light due to a misunderstanding of currently used components spec. vs real world application. 

The MS lights are what they are. Suggesting better components will aid MS if they have a reason to redesign. Application seems to suggest that redesign isn't necessary. If they were having significant failures and lost demand the changes would then probably be made.
Good news is they know which components to look at and what to replace them with.
Good work...........


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## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

Your point about spec vs. real world has some validity. Chip makers typically recommend a range of voltages for a part, and have an absolute, never go above this voltage spec as well.

You can typically get away with violating the recommended range, for a while. But if you go over the max rating, well who knows.

A company I used to work for had an owner who was pretty tight-fisted, and thought he was an engineer (no degree that I knew of). He made me use a 5 cell NiCad battery in a $2000 datalogger without adding a $0.75 voltage regulator. The processor in the datalogger would get 6 volts, most of the time (top of recommended range), except when the batteries were fresh off the charger, then it might get 7 volts or more. I kept telling him he was nuts (used politer word than nuts, he signed my paycheck), we needed a regulator. He just replied that all the units we had tested in the lab seemed to work just fine, shut up about the voltage regulator and start shipping product. He was the boss, we started shipping.

About 6 months later, we realized that we were getting a 20% customer service return rate on our datalogger product. Looking into the issue, I found the batteries we had used for testing had come out of our stockroom and had been sitting on a shelf for over a year before we took them to the engineering lab. Since they had sat for a while they had a higher internal resistance than batteries fresh from the factory. Fully charged they put out a bit over 7 volts, but dropped to a bit over 6.5 volts when the datalogger was turned on. This was outside the recommended range but under the 7 volt maximum voltage for the processor. When we started shipping dataloggers with factory fresh batteries the processor saw about 7.1 volts for just a few seconds after it turned on. This caused a 20% failure rate. The units didn't all die at once, it sometimes took several months before the came back for servicing. I think it depended on how often the user charged the battery pack.

Best part of the story is I figured all this out, found a voltage regulator that worked, added it to the battery packs. Our return rate dropped to less than 1% in a couple of months, and most of those were customer abuse of the product. At my next performance review I got dinged for not implementing the voltage regulator from the start, like my boss claimed he had wanted me to.

My lesson from all this: don't run a part outside the suggested range & don't work for assh*les. Life too short.

I don't hate the magicshine. It just reminds me of products my old boss used to make. Though the price is better  

Mark


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## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

Ironically, if the current readings you posted earlier are correct. They are low enough on high with all the LEDs running that the resistors will actually be just barely in spec. Problem solved at the expense of lumens....

But, the current readings you posted don't really add up to the runtimes others have posted so I think there is a good chance they are incorrect and too low. Reade has posted that he consistently gets runtimes of 160 minutes. That would imply a load of about 12.25 watts on the battery at full power. The current reading you measured only add up to a little over 9 watts. So that could be true if the driver efficiency was really low in the 75% range. But the efficiency of the driver on MS 900 was in the 90s. So that seems unlikely.

Which means the light may actually be a good bit brighter than the approximately 800 lumens that would results from the current values you posted. I suspect your current reading may be incorrect because some of the LEDs may be in parallel. If that's the case, then inserting a meter into the LED wiring will actually change the current flow. 

The other reason folks may not see as many resistor failure on the MS 900 as could be the case is because a lot of folks run the light on medium. On medium the resistors will be in spec and won't run really hot like they do when the light is on high. 

People that do run the light on high may also be having problems and not even be aware. When resistors run that hot their resistance value can start to degrade. That'll result in the light getting dimmer. So folks that have a MS with some hours on it may be running dimmer and not realize that's the case. And maybe they don't even care as long is it still gets the job done.....


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Don't forget that the battery cells are the cheapest Chinese made ones. CPF had a whole section on variabilty of cell voltage and runtimes back in the day ( a year ago)


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## lidarman (Jan 12, 2004)

[email protected] said:


> Maybe we've been looking at their design standards all wrong. Maybe they know exactly what they are doing!
> 
> Make a light cheap enuff that it wipes out your competition. Design it so that it will definitely burn out some critical component AFTER the 90 day warranty period. I mean we know that a well designed LED light, one that doesn't use under spec parts, and regulates the temperature of the LED, should last for what? Tens of thousands of hours. Even somebody who commutes 2 hours a day (unless they work very long hours) will only use the light for half of the year. Let's be pessimistic and say 9 months out of the year. That's at most 3000 hours a year. And those are folks who ride a lot. Most folks who buy these are going to ride what 2 hours a few nights a week for less than half the year. Maybe 1000 hours a year.
> 
> ...


I love conspiracy theories.


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## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

MtbMacgyver said:


> Ironically, if the current readings you posted earlier are correct. They are low enough on high with all the LEDs running that the resistors will actually be just barely in spec. Problem solved at the expense of lumens....


Current thru resistors is 0.4 amps for the 0.5 ohm resistor, and 2 amps for the 0.1 ohm resistor. That gives a total of 2.4 amps running thru the LED. That value comes right out of the SM5241 datasheet: ILED = 0.2/ RSENSE (one of the few parts of it that was in english).

That is over spec for the 0.1 ohm resistor when run on high by a factor of 3.2, assuming a 1/8 watt 0805 package. There are 1/4 and 1/3 watt 0805 resistors available but they cost more than using a 1206 package resistor on the board (which there is ample room for), so my guess is they use a cheaper 1/8 watt part. It's only a matter of time, but the resistor will burn out. People have seen this part fail.

I doubt the efficiency gets to 90%. At 2.4 amps the LED is consuming 8.4 watts (on average, according to SSC-P7 data sheet). 2.4 * 0.2 volts = 0.48 watts consumed by RSENSE. If the freewheel diode drops 0.4 volts (depends on how good diode is, but they show a tendency to use cheap parts), then they lose another 0.4 * 2.4 * 0.5 = 0.48 watts (0.5 is for 50% duty cycle of current thru freewheel). So they have to be wasting at least 0.96 watts. Best they could do is 89.7% efficiency and they must be losing something in the inductor and mosfet.

As to lumens for the P7, the best they could do with a C bin would be 730, and 823 if they used a D bin (but they are probably shipping C or B binned parts). They'll lose a bit of light because the reflector and glass aren't 100% transmissive.

I'd be surprised if the whole unit, with all LEDs on full, puts out anything near 1100 lumens. Which is still a decent amount of light.

Mark


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## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

[email protected] said:


> Current thru resistors is 0.4 amps for the 0.5 ohm resistor, and 2 amps for the 0.1 ohm resistor. That gives a total of 2.4 amps running thru the LED. That value comes right out of the SM5241 datasheet: ILED = 0.2/ RSENSE (one of the few parts of it that was in english).
> 
> That is over spec for the 0.1 ohm resistor when run on high by a factor of 3.2, assuming a 1/8 watt 0805 package. There are 1/4 and 1/3 watt 0805 resistors available but they cost more than using a 1206 package resistor on the board (which there is ample room for), so my guess is they use a cheaper 1/8 watt part. It's only a matter of time, but the resistor will burn out. People have seen this part fail.
> 
> ...


Your calculations match my calculations for the MS 900 running on high.

I was referring to odtexas's post that the current through the P7 was 1.71 amps when everything was on high and also making the assumption that the XPE's are driven from an alternate driver. I was also giving them the benefit of the doubt that they did use a 1/4 watt 805 resistor. Some of those assumptions may not be true, but you could make a case that this light is potentially in spec if the LED drive currents are really so low.

If the average current through the P7 is really only 1.71 amps on high, then 1.41 amps will go through the .1 ohm resistor. That means it would dissipate 199mw. That would be within the spec for a 1/4 watt (250mw) resistor.

I have my doubts if the 1.71 current through the P7 is correct. Those currents don't match up with the runtimes that have been reported. I suspect the current readings may be wrong either due to inserting a meter in the circuit or because there is PWM even when this light is on high. I'll know more when I get my hands on one myself.

If the P7 drive current is really 1.71 amps on the highest setting, then they're only getting about 480lm out of the main light on that setting.


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## The Singletrack Store (Oct 17, 2009)

I agree, I've had great fun using this light. Thanks for all the work and time you fellas put into this thread. Cheers Reade



mojojojoaf said:


> Spill and penetration look great on that last photo- not bad at all.


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## GeniusGun (Aug 26, 2009)

Can you upload a better picture of charger? Does it work in Europe (220V)? Does it use this cord link?


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## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

I would suspect from the picture that it just has the plug molded into the case, so it's probably set up for 'merikan plugs, not those funny round things you Brits use  

But odtexas, could you upload a picture of the plug side of the charger, and use your macro lens, pretty please. I'm curious what regulatory markings it has. I've seen bogus ones on Chinese chargers before.

If you really feel brave, please open the charger and take a couple of pics of the innards.

My MagicShine 900 used a very bogus charger design. It had a fuse, but I'd hardly call it safe.

Mark


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## GeniusGun (Aug 26, 2009)

I am not from Britain, I am from Estonia(North-East Europe). We have two round pins, which are a bit wider apart than american flat pins.  I am more worried about the voltages than the plug actually


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## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

I got my hands on a MS1400 and am in the process of analyzing how the electronics work. I'll do a more complete post shortly with pictures and details, but here's a sneak peak at some of the more interesting details.

The circuit board in the center section of the light housing contains two complete switching buck current regulators. One for the main light and one for the side lights. The driver for the side lights is set for a base drive current of 0.6 amps and the one for the main light is 2.4 amps. The board in the main housing is just the base regulators; it doesn't provide any of the logic for user control of the light. 

The command control button provides all the user control for the light. It's connected to the driver pcb via a four wire cable. Two of the wires are power and ground and the other two carry pulse width modulated (PWM) control signal for the main and side lights. This pcb basically has a microcontroller, a button, some LEDs for the battery status, and a voltage regulator. 

As I suspected, the PWM control signals to the light are never driven at 100% (constant on) even when the light is on its highest setting. The duty cycle is in the 95% range when the lights are on high. It is interesting that the high setting for main and side lights is the same 95% regardless of whether the two sets of LEDs are on individually or together. That means in theory that the drive current to the main LED should be the same whether it's on by itself on combined with the side lights. This is different from what was implied by the current measurements odtexas posed earlier. I think the electrical noise from having both drivers running may have caused low readings when both sets of LEDs were on. 

So is it bad that the lights are never on 100% of the time... Not necessarily. In theory that means the max average current for the main P7 LED should be 95% of 2.4 amps and 95% of the 0.6 amps for the side LEDs. In practice, that may not be true because it depends on how long it takes the driver to ramp back up to full power after being off for an instant. 

It does mean that you won't get accurate current measurements for the LEDs with a normal multimeter. The current flow in this case isn't technically DC due to the PWM and most multmeters won't give an accurate measure of the true average current for a switched waveform. It's actually quite difficult to get good numbers for a circuit like this. Switching regulators generate a lot of electrical noise, which makes it hard to get accurate reading even using an oscilloscope. And these drivers are definitely on the noisy side. It's good they are inside a metal housing because they would certainly cause problem for other wireless accessories if they were in a plastic case. That may still be an issue, but it's not something I've tried.

Here is what I measure for power consumed from the battery at different light levels.

Side lights (high) - 4 watts
Main Light (high) - 8.3 watts
Both (high) - 12.3 watts

I'm still trying to get precise measurements for the LED currents. It looks to be less than 95% of the base current settings for the drivers. From preliminary data, it looks like the true average current is about 90% of 2.4 and 0.6 amps for the main and side LEDs. If that’s correct, that puts the average LED currents at

P7 LED current on high - 2.2 amps
XPE LED current on high - 0.55 amps

Based on the datasheets for the LEDs and 90% efficiency of optics, I would estimate the light output as:

P7 Main Light - 550 lumens
XPE Side Lights - 300 lumens
Total - 850 lumens

All these numbers are preliminary and I will update them as I get more detailed measurements. One thing I'm still investigating is whether the electrical noise when both drivers are running is actually messing up the efficiency of the drivers and hence the output or if it's mostly just causing causing problems with getting accurate measurements.


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## GeniusGun (Aug 26, 2009)

Do you have any info about the charger(input voltage, charging times) or you only have lighthead?


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Will take, and post, pictures of the charger when I get home if no one beats me to it. 

MtbMacgyver -

Thanks for doing a proper EE assessment of the drive circuits. Stuff like that is still beyond me. Since you do have one now did you notice the high pitch whine from the boards. It isn't that bad, but I can notice it when its on in a quiet room. 
Probably not a chance of hearing it on a bike.
Looking forward to seeing where the more accurate drive information puts this light regarding lumens out the front.


ODT


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## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

odtexas said:


> Will take, and post, pictures of the charger when I get home if no one beats me to it.
> 
> MtbMacgyver -
> 
> ...


Yeah, I did notice that and wondered if it was just the one I have. It's actually pretty noticeable in a quiet room. I'm pretty sure it's from the pulse width modulation turning the driver on and off rapidly. It's most noticeable on my light when both sets of LEDs are on high.


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## The Singletrack Store (Oct 17, 2009)

Magicshine 1400 vendors will have access to European and Australian chargers very soon. Cheers Reade



GeniusGun said:


> Can you upload a better picture of charger? Does it work in Europe (220V)? Does it use this cord link?


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## georges80 (Jan 5, 2010)

I'll put in my 2c worth regarding the drivers etc.

These lights are very likely made to a price point. Within that price point there is a certain $ amount that can be assigned to the design/assembly of the electronics.

From just looking at the boards, they have taken some care in the design/layout, but there's lots of refinements that obviously have been ignored or are not within the knowledge base of the designers.

Just looking at via diameters (rather large) shows a lack of knowing the tradeoffs for carrying current versus more smaller vias. Also the thermal properties of large diameter vias versus small.

The fact that the inductor is a toroid, unshielded and not even fixed down to the PCB - that's likely the cheapest inductor they could find, definitely not a quality unit.

The board has a thermal path that relies on the outside rim - very poor, but easy to assemble and they can put components on both sides.

One fact that apparently has been missed in the above discussions of resistor ratings etc, is that all the components need to be de-rated for the ambient temperature of the board electronics. I'm betting that the driver board is stinking hot when bottled up inside the case - especially with the minimal thermal path to the body of the light. I'd hate to imagine the junction temperatures of the power semiconductors.

Anyhow, it's really quite simple. The light is inexpensive, lots of folk won't spend much more than $100 (or even $50) for a bike light including battery & charger. Using that metric, the light will sell in large volumes and that will allow them to drive the prices down by being able to work with lower margins.

If folk want a light that is built to the best possible standards (mechanically and electronically) it will cost more, volumes will be less so margins need to be higher.

If you buy a big box/department store bike (<$100) then one of these Chinese lights will be the ticket and even then expensive compare to the bike. If you're the person that will spend $150+ on some good pedals and shoes or $200 for a hand made saddle, then you likely aren't looking to save $100+ on a bike light and instead are looking at getting a quality light made by folk that ride bikes and won't be happy selling a product that they themselves wouldn't use.

So, just like there's a market for <$100 bikes and $500 - $5000 bikes, there's room for made in China lights and the high end lights where a lot of the profits go into R&D and support and hiring local talent.

One last point (since I'm already partially off topic here)....

Other than the distributors/reps have we ever seen the Magicshine (etc) folk on the forums - versus the folk that design/fabricate the electronics/lights of the $expensive lights? That would say a bit about the dedication to listening to the customer and taking direct input to improve the next generation product.

cheers,
george.


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## pricecw (Jul 24, 2008)

MtbMacgyver said:


> Yeah, I did notice that and wondered if it was just the one I have. It's actually pretty noticeable in a quiet room. I'm pretty sure it's from the pulse width modulation turning the driver on and off rapidly. It's most noticeable on my light when both sets of LEDs are on high.


Having worked with a number of switching regulators, my guess is the noise is from them. Most have some form of high pitched noise noticeable in a quite room.

--Carl


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Ordered some Carclo Luxeon 1 optics from  Future Electronics. They are the ones used with the XPEs. If too floody one could order some narrow or frosted narrow and give a little more punch. Just FYI..........


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Here is a picture of the charger unit. Sort of a standard unit.








Its just charging 4 lithium ion cells wired 2 series 2 parallel (2S2P).
So hot off charger voltage would be around 8.4 volts. Not sure what the charge rate is. Just the standard rate for charging Lithium ion cells. The pack has a pcb built into it to prevent over charging/discharging.


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Raining here so beam shots inside on ceiling. Camera/light on floor. Shot distance 8 foot. Excuse partial ceiling fan in shot.

This is the Luxeon 1 narrow frosted. Center hot is about 3 to 4 foot diameter. Surround out to around 6 or 7 foot.









Luxeon 1 Narrow tight. Center hot about 2 to 3 foot. Moderate artifact in beam.









Original optic from factory LUXEON I 20 mm 45°x10° Elliptical Beam Rippled Optic 









All shots were just shots of a single pod with a new optic. So one pod covered and only one photographed as optics were changed.


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## zen bicycle (Mar 23, 2007)

OD, I have a bunch of 20mm optics you can have if you want to play around for the two outside pods.


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Thanks for the offer. 
I just wanted to find something that fit and I found it on Future Electronics. Thanks for telling me about that site. 
So we know what optic they used now incase someone wants to change out the ellipticals.
Just FYI. My triple XPG with Carclo 10417s are slightly brighter and have a little better throw than the MS1400. Throw might be more due to color I think. Did some road riding last night since all of our trails are flooded here. 
The triple XPG cold white washed out the warmer P7 at 50 foot.
Anyway I would guess your 500l or any of Scars Amoeba lights would give the MS1400 a good run for the money.
Quad XPG/XPE like you and Troutie build would easily beat the M1400. 
The Darkstar would absolutely destroy it.


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## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

odtexas said:


> Here is a picture of the charger unit. Sort of a standard unit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for the pix odtexas.

According to U.L. the manufacturer is:

GME TECHNOLOGY CO LTD
2F-1 
703 YUANHUAN E RD 
FENGYUAN 
TAICHUNG HSIEN, 420 TAIWAN

Assuming I read the case number (E241618) correctly. Since the U.L. document also mentions the model number on the charger, odds are it's a valid UL symbol. The docs refer to the case number as being a universal gaming charger.

Have you noticed if the charger gets hot while running? It should not. The docs refer also to switching power supplies made by the manufacturer, and switchers typically run very cool (unless marginally designed).

It would be nice if they started shipping this charger with the Magicshine. One of my big concerns with that light was the winky and dangerous looking charger that came with it.

Mark


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Charger didn't get hot at all and no noise from it either. One of the MS900 chargers that I have has a high pitched whine while charging and did get hot. 
I charge everything in a large metal box that the computer strip, transformers, and batteries all fit in.


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## mtb_robs-x (Dec 13, 2009)

cheapest they could get, but not the worst.
I got some cheap li-ion, they make MS batteries look like lupine quality.

for what it's worse, I sold mine, but did do a test run,
to calculate runtime use 2.2ah per cell, but they are actually 2400mah equivalent,
as such not bad. the circuit is so so,... and the charger , plain old,...no comment.
the case is a big plus, that should take some stress away from battery weld spots ,
and the circuit.

what I'd like to see is a closeup, of the label / disclaimer, on the battery,...

currently working on my 10W LED,....16W wide, 20W dual, 40W quad,
and the battery is one of those things, that needs to be decent.

now the ms battery is usable, but would not call it decent, maybe runtime,
but not circuit or reliable,...



odtexas said:


> Don't forget that the battery cells are the cheapest Chinese made ones. CPF had a whole section on variabilty of cell voltage and runtimes back in the day ( a year ago)


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## mtb_robs-x (Dec 13, 2009)

this looks a lot better, than what I got form G'

this one would be a improvement, even have some labels on it, ...

but most users, are not technical, don't know, don't care,....
and don't want to pay for it ether.

that 's why I think, batteries,and chargers, must be usable, reusable, safe,
predictable, reliable,...
and have a label on them. 
without a label, they are truly Magic ,.... guess for that price, you are entitled to get
some magic,...
that's a big peevy I have, with a lot, or most battery sales I see, inflated, in all regards,
and the lumens too,... tested in a lab with best bin under most optimal conditions,... yeah right. batteries too.....
that's why I'am working on my light, and so far, I could not beat the Lupine Betty in terms of quality and performance. there are lot more options, for quantity, and price,
but you can only pick one, and people tent to pick price,...

ok, so most don't want a lupine charger for $150, and not a fancy RC multi charger,
there are some nice square ones, with a UL label, some even charger multiple batteries,
$25-30, gets you a decent charger, it's larger, has actually some "smart" electronics in it,... or sell yours for $5,... remember those cheap AA chargers,...over the years, I'am guilty too, in a pinch, the nice package at BB will do,... they all pile up,
like my Vater said, buy cheap, buy twice or trice,.... 
like my Mutter said, buy what you need, not what you want,...



[email protected] said:


> Thanks for the pix odtexas.
> 
> According to U.L. the manufacturer is:
> 
> ...


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## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

MtbMacgyver said:


> I'm still trying to get precise measurements for the LED currents. It looks to be less than 95% of the base current settings for the drivers. From preliminary data, it looks like the true average current is about 90% of 2.4 and 0.6 amps for the main and side LEDs. If that's correct, that puts the average LED currents at
> 
> P7 LED current on high - 2.2 amps
> XPE LED current on high - 0.55 amps


I finally got around to collecting a little more data on the MS1400. I think the current for the XPE LEDs is pretty close to right. I actually think the current for the Main P7 LED is lower than I said earlier. It's very hard to get an accurate value because it looks like the new inductor they used is really poor and as a result the driver output has a huge amount of ripple.

Here's the voltage waveform across the current sense resistors for the P7 LED on high.










On the MS900, this same waveform is a nice smooth line sitting at 2.4 amps. On the MS1400, the current goes to zero over about 30% of the time and then it oscillates between 2.1 amps and 3 amps during the other 70% of the cycle. I really don't feel like doing the math to figure out what that averages out to, but I'd guess around 2 amps.

Here's the voltage across the P7 led itself running at about half brightness. The part where it's off is the due to half being at half power. The oscillation at the top of the graph is from the bad current ripple just discussed.










Here's the same graph for the MS 900 on Medium










The driver for the XPEs on the MS 1400 is much better than the driver for the main LED. Here's the voltage across the LED at half brightness.










Here's the same thing on high. If you look carefully you can see the little off periods that I mentioned in the earlier post due to the PWM from the controller only being on about 95% of the time even on high.










Since the driver current for the P7 on the MS1400 is kinda unstable, I decided to measure the lux value of the MS 1400 using my light meter to see how it compared to the MS 900.

Here's the MS900 on high - 1720 lux










Here's the MS900 on high using the reflector from the MS 1400 so the comparison is fair - 1940 lux










Here is the MS1400 with just the main P7 on high - 1350










Here is my triple XPG R5 35mm light for reference - 3120 lux










So the center lux reading between the MS900 and MS1400 when both using the MS1400 reflector is 1350 vs 1940. That means the MS900 is putting out about 44% more light. The lux reading for the triple XPG is 3120 under the same conditions so it's not really even a comparison.

Since I had everything setup I also did shots and measurement of the other modes on the MS 1400

XPEs along on high - 320 lux










Both P7 and XPEs on high - 1640 lux


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## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

MtbMacgyver,

Might not what you are calling ripple current just be the normal operation of a hysteretic buck converter? A 2.1 to 3 amp current swing would be what less than 20% ripple current and I've seen hysteretic buck converters that go as high as 30% ripple.

In fact the waveform looks like a hysteretic converter run at maybe a 60% duty cycle. The long ramp up is just the inductor charging. There are a few cycles of ripple and then a long slow drop in inductor current, till the converter is turned on again. I'm guessing the inductor never really reaches zero. Of course, why they are running it like that is a mystery.

The schematics I've seen for the SM5241 don't show any cap in parallel with the output LED, so there'd probably be a lot of ripple. And the words hysteresis control show up in the translation I did thru google of the datasheet.

Mark


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## pceval (Oct 8, 2009)

I don't know anything about everything, but it seems to me that the resistors used don't fit the requirements of the job so both of the answers below are correct: a) 15 cents is saved on every unit, and b) repeat customers after 1,000 hrs of use.

Could there be other valid reasons? As a simple biker who wants to break into night riding, should I be boycotting these lights until the problem is fixed? Can this issue be esculated to the right people? Can the resistors be replaced with soldering?



[email protected] said:


> Maybe we've been looking at their design standards all wrong. Maybe they know exactly what they are doing!
> 
> Make a light cheap enuff that it wipes out your competition. Design it so that it will definitely burn out some critical component AFTER the 90 day warranty period. I mean we know that a well designed LED light, one that doesn't use under spec parts, and regulates the temperature of the LED, should last for what? Tens of thousands of hours. Even somebody who commutes 2 hours a day (unless they work very long hours) will only use the light for half of the year. Let's be pessimistic and say 9 months out of the year. That's at most 3000 hours a year. And those are folks who ride a lot. Most folks who buy these are going to ride what 2 hours a few nights a week for less than half the year. Maybe 1000 hours a year.
> 
> ...


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## znomit (Dec 27, 2007)

pceval said:


> Could there be other valid reasons?


Maybe they figure even with the under rated resistors it will last longer than the battery pack  :devil:


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## rickbike (Aug 14, 2006)

odtexas said:


> .....
> Allen set screws on bottom of pods, control pod rotation, both stripped out.
> .


the 2 smaller outer light pods can be rotated? which direction up and down or sideways or both?

thanks


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## maxtheheathen (Feb 27, 2007)

mtb_robs-x said:


> what I'd like to see is a closeup, of the label / disclaimer, on the battery,...


Here ya go, looks like maybe some google translation was used. :thumbsup:

I was also curious before ordering how heavy the aluminum case for the battery is, it's quite sturdy, 2mm wall thickness.

MS1400 battery w/ pouch 350g
MS1400 battery w/o pouch 320g
MS900 battery w/ pouch 210g
MS900 battery w/o pouch 200g
For comparison
Dinotte 4cell 250g

So, looks like they added 120g with the aluminum housing and 20g of padding with the new pouch. It seems quite durable if heavy. The seal on the wire is quite tight, and the endcaps are o-ring sealed. Although they warn "Don't dip it water or other electric liquid"  , I bet it would leak very little if at all if it got dunked.


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## rickbike (Aug 14, 2006)

MtbMacgyver said:


> ......
> 
> So the center lux reading between the MS900 and MS1400 when both using the MS1400 reflector is 1350 vs 1940. That means the MS900 is putting out about 44% more light. The lux reading for the triple XPG is 3120 under the same conditions so it's not really even a comparison.


So i'd still better off using my 2 cheap MS 900 = 1720 x 2 = 3440 lux

than using just one of the newer MS 1400


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## maxtheheathen (Feb 27, 2007)

rickbike said:


> So i'd still better off using my 2 cheap MS 900 = 1720 x 2 = 3440 lux
> 
> than using just one of the newer MS 1400


I'd say that in actual riding, the beam patern with the two XPGs make more efficient use of lumens. That said, I've only tried the light on pavement so far, and only have one MS900. But I find the beam pattern on the MS1400 almost perfect for a bar light.


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## BrianMc (Jan 5, 2010)

maxtheheathen said:


> I'd say that in actual riding, the beam patern with the two XPGs make more efficient use of lumens.


I checked. The first post says XP-E not XP-G. The XP-E is a bit more lumens per watt than the P7. At 1 A the XP-E is 2.2 x its bin rating at 350 mA, whereas the G is 2.5 x its 350 mA bin rating at 1A and goes to 3.35 x at 1.5 A.

Nice to know that the 1400 works on the bar as a floody trail beam. :thumbsup:


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## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

maxtheheathen said:


> I'd say that in actual riding, the beam patern with the two XPGs make more efficient use of lumens. That said, I've only tried the light on pavement so far, and only have one MS900. But I find the beam pattern on the MS1400 almost perfect for a bar light.


If they even are XPGs or XPEs. Everlight has begun selling a bunch of LEDs that look an awful lot like Luxeon Rebels, eg: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Everlight/ELSH-F81C1-0LPGS-C5700/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMsgllGlynFdfn0idbe0bN2NTGsPDDzHHjA%3d, down to the printed circuit mounting pads. They only handle 1 watt instead of 3, but most customers won't be able to tell the difference. If Chinese companies can produce a faux rebel, some other less honest company can produce a faux XPG, and claim it will run at XPG currents. This really makes me wonder what cheap over-watted LEDs I really have in some of those cheap flashlights I bought from Deal Extreme. Most of the emitters look smaller or different than the CREEs I bought from Digikey.

I guess it's time to go back to US distributors for LEDs when building DIY bike lights. You can't tell what you are really buying from China any longer. Hey, that 1 watt part may work great at 3 watts for a couple of weeks, and then go *zorch!* when you are 8 miles in the dark woods from your car.

I have a question for anybody who has bought the 1400. Is there any padding in the sides of the battery cylinder? I noticed a bit in the lid of the cylinder in one of MtbMacgyver's posts, and it'd be nice if they included some in the bottom. A bit on the sides to keep the batteries from slamming into the walls would be nice also.

Mark


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## maxtheheathen (Feb 27, 2007)

[email protected] said:


> I have a question for anybody who has bought the 1400. Is there any padding in the sides of the battery cylinder? I noticed a bit in the lid of the cylinder in one of MtbMacgyver's posts, and it'd be nice if they included some in the bottom. A bit on the sides to keep the batteries from slamming into the walls would be nice also.
> 
> Mark


There is padding on both ends, the pack fits tight at its corners.


----------



## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

rickbike said:


> the 2 smaller outer light pods can be rotated? which direction up and down or sideways or both?
> 
> thanks


Not the pod itself. The optic. When using elliptical or wide optics with ribbed fronts, the ribs should be vertical, at 90 degrees. This causes the light to spread horizontal, 180 degrees.

The pod itself has no ability to move. It is part of the housing which is all 1 piece cast aluminum.


----------



## The Singletrack Store (Oct 17, 2009)

Max is correct there is padding top and bottom and once you screw the cap on the foam keeps the battery nice and snug with no rattle whatsoever, here's a few pics of my battery pack. Cheers Reade



[email protected] said:


> I have a question for anybody who has bought the 1400. Is there any padding in the sides of the battery cylinder? I noticed a bit in the lid of the cylinder in one of MtbMacgyver's posts, and it'd be nice if they included some in the bottom. A bit on the sides to keep the batteries from slamming into the walls would be nice also.
> 
> Mark


----------



## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

[email protected] said:


> MtbMacgyver,
> 
> Might not what you are calling ripple current just be the normal operation of a hysteretic buck converter? A 2.1 to 3 amp current swing would be what less than 20% ripple current and I've seen hysteretic buck converters that go as high as 30% ripple.
> 
> ...


I tend to think this is more just what they ended up with under the pressure to get to market quickly than really being desired. When the light is set to high there is still about 30% off time in the current waveform due to the buck converter itself even though the signal from the command control button is calling for 95%. Also the efficiency of the driver suffers quite a bit. I calculated the efficiency of the main regulator at only 84% as a result of the design. By comparison, the converter for the XPEs is 95% and I've measured the MS 900 at 91%. So it's hard to see how this design can be considered an advantage.

But, nobody is buying this light because it's an example of good design. This light has one main selling point...price!

The one thing I do find ironic about this light is they seemed to have learned their lesson on making the battery waterproof to the point of overkill. They also have no less than 7 orings sealing the many threaded parts of the main light housing. But, there are open holes where the wires go between the main and side housings that destroy the waterproofing of the light housing. There are little rubber covers that make a vain attempt at keeping water out, but they don't fit tightly enough to work. If you really want a water resistant MS light, the 900 head with the 1400 battery is the ticket.

I will say the 1400 light head is a joy from a tinkers point of view. It has really easy access to everything since it comes apart from every side.


----------



## The Singletrack Store (Oct 17, 2009)

Hey MtbMac I have to agree with this point, that aluminum cylinder adds some weight but if it looks like wet weather, the MS1400 battery pack is the one I'll be racing with. It adds some weight but it sure seems watertight to me. Cheers Reade



MtbMacgyver said:


> The one thing I do find ironic about this light is they seemed to have learned their lesson on making the battery waterproof to the point of overkill.


----------



## CathastrophiX (Sep 28, 2008)

Available at DX now...


----------



## znomit (Dec 27, 2007)

CathastrophiX said:


> Available at DX now...


only 120$
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.36018


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## mtb_robs-x (Dec 13, 2009)

light measurements, off the ceiling,

would like to see those numbers,

center spot measurements are more deceiving, 
also like the wide smooth light,
otherwise, I'd be able to ride with a 3000 lux, laserpointer,

credit! big thanks, for the measurement !

just got my lux-meter, please PM for tips.
since these are not the expensive lab setups,
understand , it's just a comparative, ruff guide.

there was a post from a fellow german student, with access to a lumen meter,
from what I gathered, the MS does about 480-530 lumen, 

for my taste, especially with adverse conditions, like rain, 1500+ real lumen,
for the handlebar , is good. under full moon, with no rain, you can squeek be with a lot less, especially if you riding behind someone.
if you ride in some serious montains, also need a lots of side spill,
as not to be overconfident, due lack of visibility down that cliff,... 
tunel-vision might make you ride faster, but crash harder.

one more, the quality of the light, aka color rendering index, has some importance to depth perception. if you get a super-duper blue light with a ultra narrow bandwidth,
it's really bright, I mean glaring,.. and everything looks flat, or alice in wonderland, 
in B&W,... it's not only neon fugly, but little dangerous.
newest fad (fashion) , for baya off-road racing,.... ultra-yellow lights,
and it's not because it has less lumens,... but less blue light, go figure,...


----------



## jjziets (Apr 14, 2010)

*Ugrading*

Hi there. The E&E has done a gr8 job in investigating the MS1400. But I was wondering if there is any mod that can do that would bring the MS1400 in to its self?

Just looking from the post I plan to change the R100 and R500 resistors to a 1206 but reducing the values would that not hurt Q1 and the driving IC?

Should I replace the mosfed with a better one? higher RDSon? any suggestion of a model that would work?

as well is there any use smoothing out the ripple?

How about changing the LEDs to better bins? And the Batteries as well?

Regarding the heat transfer it does not look like there is much on can do to improve the heat transfer to the housing. suggestion would be appreciated


----------



## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

DMN2050L-7 should work as a mosfet. You want a lower Rdson, not higher. This has a Rdson of .029 ohms, and will dissipate about 1/4 of a watt (that's wasted power that never makes it to the LED).

MCR25JZHFLR150 is a nice .15 ohm surface mount resistor in a 1210 package. 2 in parallel would give a LED current of about 2.67 amps. If they don't fit side by side, you could always stack them. The 2 in parallel will dissipate a bit over 1/2 a watt.

All the above is available from digikey.

Mark


----------



## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

The XPE are probably  these. 








So a decent bin in color and efficiency. The P7 is probably not worth changing either. Color rendition is nice and efficiency gain would be minimal. The MCE and SST type LEDs will not work with the P7 reflector very well. 
I would leave the LEDs alone since they used decent ones.


----------



## jjziets (Apr 14, 2010)

thanks Mark, i will see if i can get that mosfet. 

odtexas. I am waiting for the light to come but, i have a few samples of the XPG S2 and it is very tempting to change them if the optics fits.


----------



## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Nice score on the S2.:thumbsup: 

The optics will fit so don't worry about that. Can't wait to see and hear more about the S2 leds.


----------



## Jim311 (Feb 7, 2006)

Raff out rowd at the Engrish on the packaging.


Avoiding touch by children!


----------



## lticew (Mar 23, 2009)

*Magicshine Lights Review (MJ-808 and MJ-816)*

I just got my Magicshine 2300 combo from GeoManGear and have posted a fairly lengthy review here:

http://www.pedal-for-charity.com/reviews/magicshine.html

Hope you guys find it helpful! ~L


----------



## got3n (Mar 4, 2008)

So if i need one flashlight what will be better/brighter MJ-808 or MJ-816 ??


----------



## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

If one only then

MJ-808 (MS900) for fast single trail on your helmet. Narrower beam, better throw, modest fill and spread

MJ-816 (MS1400) for road riding commuting. Bar mounted, good fill and spread.
Off road OK for slower, non-aggressive rides maybe.

Just matters your ride style and what you are riding. Some guys do fine riding fast with a bar only light. 
The MS 1400 is the superior bar light.


----------



## cdnxj (Feb 17, 2006)

Very nice detailed reviews guys. I am a little overwhelmed. If you could only buy one light which one would you buy? The 1400 or the single MJ 808?
Thanks!


----------



## Locoman (Jan 12, 2004)

cdnxj said:


> Very nice detailed reviews guys. I am a little overwhelmed. If you could only buy one light which one would you buy? The 1400 or the single MJ 808?
> Thanks!


The 1400 if you're looking for a bar mount and the 808 if you'd rather have a helmet mounted light.


----------



## ilostmypassword (Dec 9, 2006)

Magicshine Beam Video from www.paulpetch.com on Vimeo.


----------



## tonymaroney (Jun 24, 2010)

*Not a balance charger?*

Hi Everyone,
One question...
With R/C LiPo batteries I charge them using a "smart" charger that balances each cell with a separate 4 pin plug (in conjunction with the main power cable). The Magicshine charger doesn't have that secondary balancer connection...does it just pump current into all cells equally and then the battery PCB halts the input to each cell selectively? I get a bit worried about Lithium batteries and overcharging! Basically, how does this battery charger and battery combo balance the individual cells?

Also, I noted somewhere that a few compliants were received about water running down the battery line into the battery pack, and shorting it out...I don't think it's common, but another post on this forum used PlastiDip to coat magicshine batteries...
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=581531

Regards,
Tony


----------



## Mark2c (Apr 25, 2007)

georges80 said:


> I'll put in my 2c worth regarding the drivers etc.
> 
> These lights are very likely made to a price point. Within that price point there is a certain $ amount that can be assigned to the design/assembly of the electronics.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the great summary George, lines up with my take on them as well.

I recommend the MS900/1400 to people who would otherwise buy halogens with SLA batteries. In this market they are awesome (commoditized P7 and Li-Ion).

One thing you've omitted (but not on your drivers) is the user interface. For trail riding anything that has intermediate flashing and/or off states between high and low is basically [email protected] to use.


----------



## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

tonymaroney said:


> The Magicshine charger doesn't have that secondary balancer connection...does it just pump current into all cells equally and then the battery PCB halts the input to each cell selectively? I get a bit worried about Lithium batteries and overcharging! Basically, how does this battery charger and battery combo balance the individual cells?
> 
> Also, I noted somewhere that a few compliants were received about water running down the battery line into the battery pack, and shorting it out...I don't think it's common, but another post on this forum used PlastiDip to coat magicshine batteries...


The electronics side of lights isn't my strong suit, but here are some thoughts regarding your questions.
The charger isn't a balance charger. It puts out the needed current and the PCB in the battery pack cuts off charging when predeterimined voltage is reached. Not sure exactly how this is done. I doubt that each cell is individually balanced. You will see discussions of battery packs from DIY builds having a bad cell or a weak cell. So it is probably possible for the same to occur with the MS lights.
Hasn't been a big issue overall. There are some battery issues, but as you mentioned, most are due to water. And yes the plasti-dip works great. I have a quart sized can and can dip up to a 18650x6 pack. Highly recommend the plasti-dip.


----------



## charszmasaj (Apr 15, 2009)

odtexas said:


> Znomit -
> Reflectors are different.
> 
> 
> ...


Would like to buy similar reflector as in MS1400, anyone have idea where ? I was trying DX but havent seen anything similar.


----------



## fightnut (Jul 5, 2007)

lticew said:


> I just got my Magicshine 2300 combo from GeoManGear and have posted a fairly lengthy review here:
> 
> http://www.pedal-for-charity.com/reviews/magicshine.html
> 
> Hope you guys find it helpful! ~L


Just checked out your review, nice. Just thought I'd point something out that you might want to update on the 900lm model review. For a "con", you listed having to cycle through all the modes to get to OFF. All you have to do is hold the button for about 2 seconds and it shuts off.

Last fall I got a kick out of watching 5 riders all cycling through all the modes each time we'd stop to rest! LOL!
They liked their new lights even more when I told them about holding the button.

Also, glad you included my photo of the light directly mounted to my helmet. Nice to show people that option. If the helmet allows it, it makes more sense to do it this way to keep the light lower, away from branches (and it saves them $10).


----------



## Mark2c (Apr 25, 2007)

That doesn't help switching between high and low though...


----------



## fightnut (Jul 5, 2007)

Mark2c said:


> That doesn't help switching between high and low though...


 That's not what he listed as a "con". He said cycling through to OFF. That's what I addressed.

To address your concern, it's _only_ 2 clicks either way (hi-lo or lo-hi).


----------



## ortelius (Dec 6, 2007)

fightnut said:


> That's not what he listed as a "con". He said cycling through to OFF. That's what I addressed.


Um, not really. In the review, what is actualy listed as a "con is:


> Cons: Cycling through off mode.


 And that, as far as I understand (I'm not English native speaker), doesn't refer to the assumption that you must click few times if you want to get to the OFF mode. It refers to an annoying fact that when you cycle through modes, you also go through OFF mode, i.e. you are left in dark for couple of moments when you cycle through all modes.

And about the thing that you addressed (how to shut down the light without cycling through modes): if you would read the review carefully you would notice that your suggestion was explained in the text few months ago:


> Other things worth noting are that the strobe is quite fast, and you must cycle through the "off" mode every time you want to change settings.
> 
> **UPDATE 4-21-2010** A reader has pointed out that you can just hold down the power button for two seconds to turn it off instead of cycling through modes, but either way, you're gonna be slowed down while riding.


----------



## BlownCivic (Sep 12, 2006)

charszmasaj said:


> Would like to buy similar reflector as in MS1400, anyone have idea where ? I was trying DX but havent seen anything similar.


Ditto. Source for MS1400 reflector please (other than buying the MS1400 of course)!


----------



## Matt Slaney (Dec 30, 2007)

*Voltage for the simple minded*

Hi everyone - I love your thread here but you guys are way beyond me in the EE world. I am a simple V=IR and P=VI kind of guy. I have a MagicShine 1400 on a bike I converted to an electric powered commuter bike. (Yes I still pedal, it just takes the edge off of my 18 mile commute so I don't arrive to work needing a shower).
Anyway, the motor has a 36V 10Amp-Hr battery and I am adding in a 12V 10Amp-Hr battery to power the motor with 48 volts. (Yes the motor and controller can take it.)

I want to tap off of the practically unlimited storage capacity (compared to the light's needs) of these batteries to power my magicshine 1400. In my simple mind, the light is a resistor of so many ohms. I gather from this thread that the 1400 on high pulls 12.3 Watts from a 7.4V battery. Since Power=V^2/R, then the light must be R=7.4^2/12.3=4.45 ohm. With those figures, I should be seeing P=VI 12.3=7.4I, I=1.66A which doesn't add up to the current numbers posted but I will ignore that for now and go with the numbers.

I have a voltage source of 48V and I need to power the light with 7.4V. So if I throw a 24.46ohm resistor in series with the 4.45ohm light, I draw the 1.66A through the circuit, with 40.6V dropping across my resistor and 7.4V across the light. This would waste P=VI=40.6*1.66=67.4 Watts across my resistor. Seems like an awfully big waste to power a 12.3 Watt light!

I figure I am missing something here. Especially since the current doesn't seem to add up with what you guys posted about the current through the LEDs.

OK, you can see where I am going with this. I have my choice to tap off just the 36V, just the 12V, or the whole 48V power source. Where should I tap from, and what should I put in series or parallel with the magicshine 1400 to give it the right voltage and hopefully not waste more power then I am using?

First person with the answer gets the geek appreciation award!

Thanks everyone!
Matt


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## BlownCivic (Sep 12, 2006)

IMHO, if you try and drop the light voltage from the 48 or 36 volts, you'll just be generating a whole bunch of heat for nothing. Go for the 12v tap. As to the value of the required resistor(s), I'll leave that to the much bigger geeks on this site!


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## Matt Slaney (Dec 30, 2007)

Right! What the heck was I thinking?! Doing that, using all of my above values, I would need only a 2.78ohm resistor which would waste only 7.6W. Makes a lot more sense. Now if someone can just confirm my resistor value of 4.45ohm for the light and hopefully make sense of the current discrepancy since I figured 1.66Amps for the whole thing based on power and voltage but earlier posts showed 2.4 Amps in just the P7 and .6A in each of the XPEs. Something is not adding up.
Thanks for the help!
Matt


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## Matt Slaney (Dec 30, 2007)

I just thought of something else. Even when I get the resistance right, it will only be good for the light on full power with all three LEDs running. As soon as I push the button on the light, the extra resistor will be the wrong value for the new setting. I guess what I need is a configuration that will output 7.4 V from a 12V source regardless of load. I know that designing such a thing is possible but it is way beyond my capabilities. Anyone?


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## savagemann (Jan 14, 2008)

Matt Slaney said:


> I just thought of something else. Even when I get the resistance right, it will only be good for the light on full power with all three LEDs running. As soon as I push the button on the light, the extra resistor will be the wrong value for the new setting. I guess what I need is a configuration that will output 7.4 V from a 12V source regardless of load. I know that designing such a thing is possible but it is way beyond my capabilities. Anyone?


Here is a pic of the inside flap from my MS1400 box.
It says that voltage is between 6-18v
Maybe explore that a little more and make sure they are talking about input V, and you won't need to do anything besides hook it up to your 12v


----------



## Matt Slaney (Dec 30, 2007)

With that last realization, I started looking at DC-DC converters. I THINK I need the PST-DC292 DC/DC Converter shown at http://www.powerstream.com/dc-dc.htm. It is the bottom one with a car cigarette lighter input and a dial to adjust your output voltage. (Shown just above the custom line with the "@" symbol for a picture). I would set the output at 7.5V. It seems to fit the bill. But I also am seeing LED drivers that seem to seek a constant current instead. Should I be trying to power the magicshine with a constant current? If so, what current? 

Thanks in advance for the help folks!


----------



## Matt Slaney (Dec 30, 2007)

@ Savageman - I posted about my DC-DC converter before I saw your post. Now wouldn't that be awesome?! Just tap off my 12V and send it straight to the magicshine. I like that solution! I'll look into that.
This gives me all the more incentive to add the 12V to my bike. It has been running fine on the 36V. I just wanted more pep so figured I would add the extra battery to give it the extra get up and go. But if it is also a perfect power supply for my light, even better!

Thanks!


----------



## savagemann (Jan 14, 2008)

savagemann said:


> Here is a pic of the inside flap from my MS1400 box.
> It says that voltage is between 6-18v
> Maybe explore that a little more and make sure they are talking about input V, and you won't need to do anything besides hook it up to your 12v


Also, keep in mind that when the battery is fully charged that it is at 8.4v, not 7.4.


----------



## savagemann (Jan 14, 2008)

Matt Slaney said:


> @ Savageman - I posted about my DC-DC converter before I saw your post. Now wouldn't that be awesome?! Just tap off my 12V and send it straight to the magicshine. I like that solution! I'll look into that.
> This gives me all the more incentive to add the 12V to my bike. It has been running fine on the 36V. I just wanted more pep so figured I would add the extra battery to give it the extra get up and go. But if it is also a perfect power supply for my light, even better!
> 
> Thanks!


Make sure you do your research, as I really have no clue what I'm talking about........just reading off the flap of the box......= )
But I do know that most LED drivers take a range of voltage, and it wouldn't suprise me if you could run it off 12v.


----------



## Matt Slaney (Dec 30, 2007)

OK, so looking above in this same thread, I see that the P700 main LED uses a 5241 driver. It looks like that is good for anywhere from 5.5-36V input. So far so good. But the two side LEDs use a DX3256 driver which looks to be rated for 6V input max. Somehow that doesn't fit with the 7.4-8.4V battery that comes with light in the first place. ??? Maybe the 2 side lights are in series? In which case, I could tap off the 12V and just get away with it (assuming the 12V SLA battery is really 12V and not 13 or something). 

Hopefully someone can weigh in here. I am basically rambling because I don't really know what I am talking about!


----------



## savagemann (Jan 14, 2008)

I'm pretty sure a fully charged 12v battery is going to be something like 14.2v or something like that.


----------



## [email protected] (Mar 28, 2007)

Where did you buy your light from? If you got it from DX, good luck returning it if something goes wrong. If you bought it from Geoman, he might give you a replacement (especially if you neglect to mention you might may have over-volted the light and ran it at 12+ volts  ).

The early magicshine lights I looked at cut corners wherever they could. If they kept following that design philosophy with the 1400, I'd worry a bit about running it off a 12 volt battery. They might have used capacitors rated at about your battery's upper voltage limit when it's fresh off the charger. So every time you plug your battery in you never know when the smoke will leak out of some important part  .

If you bought it from a Chinese distributor, I'd hesitate to plug it into your 12 volt (or up to 16 volts hot off the charger) battery. If you dealt with a local distributor who will replace it, you might as well experiment, it's not like you will be exceeding what the box said the light could do.

The DC/DC converter you mention should work. $18 for some peace of mind is not a bad solution. If the converter can really deliver 2 amps at 7.5 volts it should be capable of driving the 1400.

Don't bother playing with resistors. The way to look at an LED driven by a buck converter is by the power in watts consumed by the light, not the amps thru the LED. And a buck converter might not deal well with an external resistor in series anyway.

Mark


----------



## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

You can't treat the magicshine light as a resistive load. It's a constant power device which behaves very differently from a resistive load. The regulator is a switching regulator and tends to pull power in pulses of energy. That won't work well with a resistor in the power feed. 

Another reason a resistor isn't going to help you much on the Magicshine is because all the electronics are powered even when the light is off. That means when you plug the light in, but haven't turned it on, the current will be almost zero. Since the current is almost zero, the voltage drop through the resistor will be almost zero. That means all the electronics will be exposed to the full battery voltage up until the point that you actually turn on light. 

Yes, the driver chip is rated for a fairly high voltage, but the capacitors on the board aren't rated for as high of a voltage as the driver chip. The capacitors on the MS900 light are rated for 10v. The capacitors on the MS1400 driver are not marked, so your guess is a good as mine. So the only safe way to run this is from a DC to DC converter that outputs between 7 and 8.4 volts. Also, the MS1400 doesn't use a DX3256 for the side lights. Both the main and side lights are driven off the main driver board. 

You really want to run the DC to DC converter off the full battery voltage (48V) not off the 12V battery tap. That's because all your batteries are 10ah. If you run the light off the 12V tap, you're going to make that battery run down sooner. Doing that will effectively limit the runtime on your entire battery pack. That's because you'll have to stop discharging the whole battery when the 12V battery runs downs. If you don't the 12v battery is going to be reverse charged by the 36V battery. That will greatly shorten the life of the 12v battery. You are effectively unbalancing the battery pack by running something off one of the intermediate taps. That has implications on the recharge as well. The 36V part of the battery will reach full charge before the 12v battery and will overcharge. That will also shorten the life of the battery.

In the end, a Magicshine light really isn't a good choice for this type of application. Going through a DC-DC converter and then the magicshine driver which is also another DC-DC converter is fairly inefficient. What you really want is something like a taskled.com hyperbuck that'll let you run the LED driver directly off the 48V battery pack.


----------



## Matt Slaney (Dec 30, 2007)

Thanks everyone for the help! 
Thanks to your help, I realize it is a lot more complicated than I had hoped. I think I will just continue to use the battery that came with it. The effort needed to power the light off the 36V and/or 12V battery just isn't worth it since it has been working fine with the battery made for it in the first place.
I'll come back the next time I have a bright idea that needs recalibrating!
Matt


----------



## sonic reducer (Apr 12, 2010)

how water resistant is the MS1400? I need a light I can throw on my ski helmet or ride in the rain and not worry about moisture. not taking it scuba diving or anything just need it to not crap out if it gets a little wet.


----------



## Matt Slaney (Dec 30, 2007)

It is generally well sealed but you can see some potential leak points if you look carefully. Just to be sure, I put silicone caulking in the places the wires come into it and anyplace else that looked suspicious and I have had no problems when riding in some fairly serious rain.


----------



## jjziets (Apr 14, 2010)

*MJ808 circuit schematic*

I have a couple of broken MJ808 and was wondering if someone has a circuit schematic of the driver. would help allot if i don't have todo it my self


----------



## cartmanmyass (Feb 15, 2010)

*MJ-816 Power Selection switch does not work anymore*

MtbMacgyver,

The MJ-816 power button selection switch does not work anymore after three 1-hour usages. The main light in the middle stays on and the other two side peripheral lights start to fade and do not light after power on. The LEDs for the battery status also do not light. 
Right now I can only have the main middle light on manually connecting with the battery pack. I don't have a schematic how this command control button pcb works. You seem to know when this MS1400 works. I'd like to know if you know the problem I have is related to a faulty microcontroller, bad soldering, or something else.

thanks,
Chik



MtbMacgyver said:


> I got my hands on a MS1400 and am in the process of analyzing how the electronics work. I'll do a more complete post shortly with pictures and details, but here's a sneak peak at some of the more interesting details.
> 
> The circuit board in the center section of the light housing contains two complete switching buck current regulators. One for the main light and one for the side lights. The driver for the side lights is set for a base drive current of 0.6 amps and the one for the main light is 2.4 amps. The board in the main housing is just the base regulators; it doesn't provide any of the logic for user control of the light.
> 
> ...


----------



## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

cartmanmyass said:


> MtbMacgyver,
> 
> The MJ-816 power button selection switch does not work anymore after three 1-hour usages. The main light in the middle stays on and the other two side peripheral lights start to fade and do not light after power on. The LEDs for the battery status also do not light.
> Right now I can only have the main middle light on manually connecting with the battery pack. I don't have a schematic how this command control button pcb works. You seem to know when this MS1400 works. I'd like to know if you know the problem I have is related to a faulty microcontroller, bad soldering, or something else.
> ...


I don't mean to sound rude, but I made a conscience decision to stop providing "technical support" for these lights. I was just getting too many requests every week for help with problems with Magicshine light heads. I'm trying to spend more of my time on DIY light projects and helping others with similar projects.


----------



## cartmanmyass (Feb 15, 2010)

MtbMacgyver, no problem at all. I understand. Thanks for all the past technical posts on MS1400. They are very helpful. Good luck on your DIY light projects.



MtbMacgyver said:


> I don't mean to sound rude, but I made a conscience decision to stop providing "technical support" for these lights. I was just getting too many requests every week for help with problems with Magicshine light heads. I'm trying to spend more of my time on DIY light projects and helping others with similar projects.


----------



## ovlaicu (Apr 6, 2011)

What's the shipping time like, for these lights from GeoMan?
I still can't understand how these can be SO much cheaper than Lupine, Light and Motion, Niterider, etc


----------



## biketuna (Mar 28, 2008)

slave Chinese labor


----------



## ovlaicu (Apr 6, 2011)

If you put it so bluntly!!!


----------



## find_bruce (May 8, 2011)

Wages affect the cost of production, but it is not the only factor at play.

No doubt the more expensive companies will justify their higher prices by reference to:

Research & development;
superior components
marketing & promotion costs;
warranty support
product liability

Then there are factors which have no relationship to the costs incurred, like why the same chinese made light & battery can be sold for a range between $80 & $200. The reality is that people will charge what they think the market will bear.


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## andychrist (Aug 25, 2011)

Okay, so I just got my MJ-816 delivered yesterday afternoon. After charging it fully, took it out for a spin on high power. After less than fifteen minutes, the control button indicated the charge was down to 75%. At that rate, I would have been lucky to get a total 45 minutes runtime on that setting, as the battery may not be drawn all the way down. Does it have to go through a number of discharge cycles before it approaches the advertised runtime or is this as good as it gets? Somehow I suspect the good people at MagicShine might have justified (to themselves) stretching the truth about runtime a little bit because the light cycles down to the lowest setting once the indicator goes red; in this way one could possibly start out on high power and still have light for a couple of hours or so but most of that time it would be at only 5%. What have you guys found? Thanks.

BTW, saw on MagicShine's own site, they describe their 900 lumen lamp as putting out 600, FWIW.


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## ThinkBike (Jun 16, 2010)

I'm not sure about MS but the Nite Rider site has this FAQ about their lithium-ion battery packs that indicates the fuel gauge isn't accurate unless the battery has been through a charge and drain cycle.

_Li-Ion batteries do not need to be drained down completely prior to their first use. However, it is highly recommended to apply a full charge to a battery prior to its first use. Note the Pro Series batteries need to be drained down and recharged prior to their first use in order to calibrate the system's fuel gauge._


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## andychrist (Aug 25, 2011)

Yeah, I saw a disclaimer about the accuracy of the magicshine's charge indicator, though the site did not mention anything about improving it by going through a charge cycle. Thing is, I initially charged the battery until the indicator read full; then after less than fifteen minutes of use on high power, it took over an hour to recharge all the way. As complete charging time is stated by the manufacturer to be 3.5 hours, I'm estimating that I ran down the battery by roughly a third. At that rate it would only have given me about 45 minutes on high, not the advertised 2.5 hours. Only other thing I can think of is that the battery did not actually charge close to full capacity initially (though it supposedly comes partially charged from the factory and it soaked up the juice for around a couple of hours when I first plugged it in.) Guess I'll have to put it through another complete cycle or two to determine the maximum runtime on full power.


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## savagemann (Jan 14, 2008)

I'll preface this by stating that I don't really know what I'm talking about......
So, I hope I can word this correctly..........

Andy, keep in mind that the charge profile of most lithium systems is not linear.
The amperage tapers down as the system nears capacity.
I'll just throw some random numbers out there so you can understand what I'm saying.
Let's say the overall charge time of a system is 3.5 hours......the battery can reach 90% capacity in an hour of that time.
To squeeze that extra 10% of juice in there it needs to do it slowly, for the safety of the battery, so it throttles down the amperage.
The charger is smart enough to notice that when the cells reach a certain point of capacity it needs to slow things down.
Cycle the battery completely a couple times.
Put it in front of a fan and let it do it's thing, recharge and repeat.
I think you'll find that will make a huge difference.


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## andychrist (Aug 25, 2011)

Good point savagemann, which is why I'll be putting it through another couple of cycles before I reach any conclusion. Fortunately as well, the two side lamps were actually enough to meet my needs at average speeds-- and as they are remote from the circuit board, I imagine I could run them at full power for a good while and not have to worry about overheating, and only run the high beam on fast descents. Plus I see on eBay where, if necessary, I can get one of those new MJ-828 battery packs as back-up for around $40, shipping included. They have only the same capacity as what came with the MJ-816, but sport the built-in voltage display. Brightstonesports is also selling Samsung's 5600 mAh battery pack, but I'm not so sure it is worth the extra cost.


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## savagemann (Jan 14, 2008)

I really liked my ms 1400.
I would mostly use only the small lamps when climbing. 
Then when things flattened out id turn everything to around medium. 
When things pointed down id hit full blast.
I never really had any issues with mine...but it did take a few cycles of the battery to reach full capacity.
The only reason i don't use it anymore is i started building my own lights. 
I keep it around for buddies to use and they always enjoy it.
I upgraded mine with a marwi mount as i had problems with it slipping and rattling around a bit.
Combine it with an ms 900 on the helmet like i did and it'll take some serious speed to outride that output.
After a solid year of night riding i actually started to need more light as i was outriding my setup.
I built up a couple lights that should last me a great while....although i occasionally feel like i may be coming close to outriding my 3000 current lumens. 

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk


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## Vancbiker (May 25, 2005)

andychrist said:


> Okay, so I just got my MJ-816 delivered yesterday afternoon. After charging it fully, took it out for a spin on high power. After less than fifteen minutes, the control button indicated the charge was down to 75%. At that rate, I would have been lucky to get a total 45 minutes runtime on that setting, as the battery may not be drawn all the way down. Does it have to go through a number of discharge cycles before it approaches the advertised runtime or is this as good as it gets?


It is also possible that your battery has a bad cell, it's been known to happen with MS


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## Khrystyan27 (Jul 3, 2011)

Nightshots, on a paved road for example?

Or on a wet road?

I am curious how the P7 can handle dark wet roads.


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## GraXXoR (Sep 29, 2011)

*Treble XM-L setup with the 816, feasible?*

I know that replacing the centre pod P7 LED with an XM-L is feasible, but how about also replacing the side pod XP-E LEDs with XM-L's too... Would that work? I believe they would only be driven at 1A since that is what the driver outputs, but from what I can see, the XM-L is a much more efficient beast that the XP-E. Any thoughts on that?


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

should work just fine. 
Will give a few more lumens and a wider beam. Not sure if you would be able to notice though.

Overall replacing all three emitters might increase efficiency and output 10 to 20 percent. That's just a ballpark estimate. Honestly unless you are doing it just for fun you would be better off buying a second light for increased output.


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## ThinkBike (Jun 16, 2010)

Keep the XP-Es. They have a narrower beam and throw better than an XM-L would (using the same MS reflector that came with your light). It took me about a year of reading this forum to finally figure out that the best results aren't always obtained by using the latest LED. The LED and optic or reflector need to be properly matched to obtain the type of beam you're trying to achieve.

On the other hand, if you're like me, I'd just tear it apart for the heck of it. Just to see what the XM-Ls looked like.


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## GraXXoR (Sep 29, 2011)

@Thinkbike: Yes, it does seem that way, doesn't it. Newer LEDs require newer matching reflectors/optics.

However, the MJ-816 is using elliptical optics in any case and these are flood LEDs, I was thinking of changing the LEDs to get some extra flood capability... But I see that the side pods only drive at 0.6~7 A and not at 1A, so I don't think any worthwhile power savings / light gains are to be had at that nominal value.

One thing that I am interested in though, is if the drivers/optics in the new MJ-816E (factory sum 1800lm) model have been upgraded to take advantage of the XM-L XP-G combo over the original P7 XP-E or have they just replaced the LEDs, rendering any possible gains neutered.


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## fightnut (Jul 5, 2007)

ThinkBike said:


> On the other hand, if you're like me, I'd just tear it apart for the heck of it. Just to see what the XM-Ls looked like.


Here's a cheaper one you can play with, already comes with one XML.


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## GraXXoR (Sep 29, 2011)

@Vancbiker.... I am a road rider most of the time so usually rely on the floods (only) on full with a flashing 818 at the rear.

However, at junctions and on dark stretches, I switch the thing to full power.

I find that when I'm running the 816 on full power, the sensor tends to drop to the next color down quite soon... Yes, probably only 15 minutes or so. (Green->Blue, Blue->Orange etc) but if I turn of the main light off within a few minutes, the power gauge goes back to the original color again.

I think that since the 3A power drain (+1/4A or so for the flashing 818) is really near the 4A limit of the cell, it's causing the poor battery voltage to sag and trip the power gauge.

Removing the load causes the voltage to recover and if this recovers above the hysteresis point of the sensor then the lamp will return to the prior voltage.

I never use full power continuously, however but after about 50km and 3 hours of riding with floods and flashing tail and, say a conservative 10~15mins of full power, my indicator will still usually be on orange by the time I get home.


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## GraXXoR (Sep 29, 2011)

fightnut said:


> Here's a cheaper one you can play with, already comes with one XML.


Hmmm... A company that is 

Sells mainly/only through ebay
Quotes an XML + 2 XPEs as 2400
Is anal enough to splurge their logo over every item in a product photo
States a 30~40 day shipping time!
does not strike me as a likely reliable source.

I'll pass on that one... since, as I'm a road biker mainly, I need flood capability and the side pods have been furnished with mirror reflectors and regular glass.

Thanks for the heads up though. If the side pods had been XM-L s or XP-Gs I might have bitten.


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## QuantumQrack (Jul 20, 2011)

I just received a MJ-816E, and I have detected a small rattle in the light head unit. Is this cause for concern at all? Is there any way for me to get rid of the rattle? I think it is within the center light housing, and the rattle is fairly faint, but I can hear it, and it bugs me. The light works fine so far. Thoughts? Ideas?


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## odtexas (Oct 2, 2008)

Something loose of course. Worst case is a small bit of solder that could short out circuitry if it lands in the wrong spot. 
Front screws off. It is probably worth poking around some and isolating the rattle.


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## QuantumQrack (Jul 20, 2011)

odtexas said:


> Something loose of course. Worst case is a small bit of solder that could short out circuitry if it lands in the wrong spot.
> Front screws off. It is probably worth poking around some and isolating the rattle.


I'll try that when it cools off! Seems like a nice light. (For the price, $130.00)

Update: Retainer ring inside one of the floods was loose. Thanks for the tip.


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## andychrist (Aug 25, 2011)

Okay, so I've had the Magic Shine for about two years now. Have only had to use it occasionally during the early autumn, as I put my bike in storage after that and don't take it back out until springtime when the days are long again. So maybe in total I've put it through about 50 or 60 charging cycles tops. This past week it seems to have stopped accepting a charge: still a good deal of juice left, button switch hovers between green and blue so about 75%, and it still runs the lights fine. But when I connect the charger, the indicator LED stays green. Thought at first it was a bad connection (has always been fiddly) but when I disconnect the charger from the mains, leaving it connected to the battery, its LED stays lit green. So it is drawing power back from the battery, meaning that the contact is good, right? That made me think that maybe the charger was FUBAR, but when I connected it to the MJ-828 battery pack that came with my MJ 818 tail light, the indicator changed to red right away. What's going on here? Also, when the indicator is green, does that mean the charger is shut off, or does it put out a trickle charge? Hoping the latter might be the case so I can keep going until a replacement battery arrives, along with a new auxiliary light and charger. Gulp!


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## CCCRider (Dec 11, 2013)

*Magicshine mj816e deconstruct. Battery, Switch, Light*

There have been a lot of good breakdowns of the magicshine circuitry but I have not seen this, the intersection of the battery, power switch, and light. Mine seems to be in order, ultimately the problem I was trying to isolate is probably a short somewhere between the battery and this board. In case you are trying to hack your light the wire colors match the current path and the board continuity is as you would expect:
VCC>VCC>VCC
GRD>GRD>GRD
PW1>PW1
PW2>PW2

Obviously not beautiful soldering, but that is what you get for $120. Apart from mine not working right now I highly recommend these lights.


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## scar (Jun 2, 2005)

CCCRider said:


> Apart from mine not working right now I highly recommend these lights.


Now that is a ringing endorsement :thumbsup:


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