# FTL FH-801 Pro - 416 LED Persistence of Vision Wheel Display



## nbritton (Jul 26, 2016)

Anyone have experience with the FT-801 Pro 416 LED color wheel display? I bought two of them the other day on a lark and now they're on the boat coming from China. I'll put up a review when I get them but I was wondering if anyone knew anything more about them. Looking at a screenshot of the programming application the name of the device is actually referred to as the FTL FH-801 Pro, and my best guess at the moment is that it's made by Shenzhen Bao Tianxiang Technology Co., Ltd.






They're on sale right now from GearBest for $56.86:

FT - 801 Pro

Also they have a FT-801 with 256 LEDs for $40.22:

FT - 801

Here is a link I found very helpful on persistence of vision wheel displays:

Bike Lights | Sub-Etha Software

Also available from GearBest are:

Yueqi YQ8008

Yueqi YQ8007

Yueqi YQ8005

Yueqi YQ8003

Yueqi YQ8002

XuanWheel X1

XuanWheel S1


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## Cat-man-do (May 16, 2004)

Yes, Gearbest certainly does sell a lot of "gimmicky" bike stuff. Nothing wrong with using wheel lights though. The stuff sold to display photos and specific color patterns is more or less only used by people for special events. Rarely do you see anyone using complex wheel lights for just general everyday use.

I use wheel lights myself but the ones I use only have three leds per wheel. I use them because it adds to my visible presence at night when I ride on the road. I hate though that the battery compartment is hard to mount and takes up space. At some point I may discontinue using them if I find something better ( better meaning> lighter weight, smaller/less visible battery compartment.) Really though, two or three small LED per wheel is all you need to produce a very visible color pattern. The stuff that produces video is cool but I'd not be willing to carry all that rotational weight on my wheels for everyday use.

The smallest wheel lights I own are called "Atozi" bike spoke LED's"
I would consider these perfect except for the fact that the Led's are powered by three small button batteries. "Button batteries" ( putting it mildly ) suck. The Atozi's are simple to put on or take off and stay in place when in use. They're simple but maybe a little too simple as button batteries don't last long ( not to mention they loose capacity even when not being used ) Button batteries aren't cheap either unless you buy on the internet. I rarely use the Atozi's now but only because the ones I use now on my road set-up use a battery case that uses AA cells. Occasionally though I'll use the Atozi's on my Mt. Bike if I have to ride a short distance on the road.


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## nbritton (Jul 26, 2016)

I believe the original manufacturer is:

Shenzhen Damaizi Technology Co., Ltd.
28th Floor, Block 10, Minghao Licheng, Shangxing South Road, Shajing, Bao'an District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China

https://detail.1688.com/offer/534234933305.html

They can be reached at: ftlbw [at} hotmail {dot) (com]


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## Cat-man-do (May 16, 2004)

Spam alert...


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## nbritton (Jul 26, 2016)

Cat-man-do said:


> Spam alert...


Ahh yeah... I'll edit it so the spam bots can't harvest it.


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## Cat-man-do (May 16, 2004)

Sorry if I offended you. The member policies of MTBR are very sensitive when it comes to ( new ) members who try post links. This is done to reduce the number of people who join just to post links to products that they have a vested interest in. As such new members are not allowed to post links until they have a certain number of posts. The spammers in turn have learned that all they have to do is just post a bunch of misc. posts and soon they can post links.

Personally I'm tolerant of this practice as long as it doesn't get out of hand. Judging from the long line of negative rep. you have from other members and the fact that you didn't offer discussion but instead just posted another link to the same product I have no choice but to assume this is just a spam thread. At some point the moderators will step in, look at your history and then decide whether or not to allow you to continue to post.

Since you're a new member I'm just letting you know how it works.
The negative rep was one red flag and another was this, > "You said you ordered the wheel lights but are now asking if anyone else has used them" :skep: ( see below )



nbritton said:


> ...Anyone have experience with the FT-801 Pro 416 LED color wheel display? I bought two of them the other day on a lark and now they're on the boat coming from China. I'll put up a review when I get them but I was wondering if anyone knew anything more about them....


 Well, if you are on a bike forum and are thinking about buying a set of lights for your bike it just makes sense to "ask first" and then decide what to buy based on the discussion. If someone had wrote that the lamps you were thinking of ordering were complete crap, you might want to know that "before ordering". Of course you also listed a ton of other links in the same post so you have to admit it's hard not to see the red flags when they are being waved so obviously in your face....If it smells like spam, looks like spam, it probably is spam.


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## nbritton (Jul 26, 2016)

You do realize I posted information and links for fifteen different persistence of vision display systems manufactured by six different manufactures. My only vested interest is sharing information about these systems because I think they are cool. I'm here talking about the FH-801 Pro in particular because it is the highest resolution device out of all of the current systems, there is a void of information about this device, and it happens to be the device I bought.

As I said, I bought the device on a lark. It was an impulse purchase because I was amazed by the device.

I have a negative rating because apparently this forum has a lot of people who are intolerant of differing view points regarding the use of helmets, and also they apparently hate bluetooth speakers.


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## nbritton (Jul 26, 2016)

Anyhow, I received the device today. My first impressions are that the hardware seems decent but that the software is utter garbage. Perhaps it's my bias as being a faithful Mac user, but the user experience with this Windows only software is very bad. I suppose the software gets the job done, but it just exudes a feeling that it's trash, maybe that's just Windows. For instance, there is no preview when selecting which files you want to import into the application and I don't see a way to proportionally resize images within the application. It outputs data in a properitary .pov file format. I tried using MIME types and other applications to identify the file format, one application indicated that it was a Corel Photo Paint (.cpt) file but when I tried to open it with CorelDraw it just gave me an error.

The first thing that jumps out at me with the hardware is that I don't think it would survive being fully submersed in water. It does claim to be IPX-6, and I don't doubt that, but it is clearly not submersible. There are several steam crossing at my local trail park so this has me a little bit worried.

Also Gearbest apparently opened the boxes and removed the included 18650 lithium-ion batteries. This is underhanded in my opinion. These device will need button top 18650 cells, flat tops will not work because of the way the battery compartment is designed. The compartment will accommodate a protected cell.


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## Cat-man-do (May 16, 2004)

nbritton said:


> ...I have a negative rating because apparently this forum has a lot of people who are intolerant of differing view points regarding the use of helmets, and also they apparently hate bluetooth speakers.


I think every sub-forum of the MTBR website is a little different in how it's users treat new members. Some of the other MTBR sub-forums are completely off the wall so I understand that. Let's just say being anti-helmet or pro-bike speaker is not necessarily going to make you a lot of friends here or on any other forum used by people who ride bikes. To discuss Bluetooth speakers for bikes you might want to check out the website, "_ Bike forums_" ( under "electronics, lighting and gadgets" sub-forum ). A lot of people there don't like to listen to other people's music as well but at least the threads on the subject include both views and the discussions continue._ Bike forums_ doesn't use rep. If you get bad rep there it's only because the people who disagree with you will remember you if things get out of hand.

Sorry to hear that you have problems with the device you bought. I don't know too much about the kind that you have but other complex bike wheel lights I've seen...some of those use phone apps to transfer images to the devices ( think I seen that over on Amazon, not sure though ).

I wouldn't assume that Gearbest took the batteries out...BUT...if they did it would likely be because they could be better assured that you would get the main unit without delay. Perhaps they will ship the batteries later. Of course the other possibility is that someone took the batteries out while inspecting packaging for air flight. Who's to say?

I've seen button top 18650's sold over on Amazon, not cheap though. You can order them cheaper from some of the Chinese websites but then you have to wait longer for shipping. BTW Gearbest doesn't have the greatest reputation. I've ordered from there before and not received my order. Regardless I still use them from time to time but only if they have something I can't get elsewhere.


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## nbritton (Jul 26, 2016)

Update:

So after some deliberation I decide not to put these on my full suspension trail bike. I wasn't sure that they would hold up to the punishment of trail riding and I also wasn't sure they would be waterproof enough for stream crossings. Furthermore, they are designed for 26 inch wheels but I have a 29er. Instead, I decided to put them on my old bike that I just converted into an urban commuter.

Installation was easy, it just has two zip ties that loop around the hub and four zip ties at the end of each arm to hold them to the spoke. The only tool I needed was some side cutters.

I take back some of the things I said about the software. I figured out that you can adjust the scale proportionally using the mouse scroll wheel. Additionally, I figure out how to set the Windows 10 file dialog box to display thumbnails. Once I figured those two things out the software was much more usable.

Edit:

I took them out for a spin tonight, they are very conspicuous. They are probably perfect for a commuter bike because they draw people's attention, I road past a playground and the young children there were wonderstruck.

A cool feature that I didn't know about is these lights automatically go to sleep after 90 seconds of no movement. Then they turn back on when you start moving. They can run off of just one 18650 lithium-ion rechargeable battery, but they can actually hold up to three 18650 batteries. With three batteries I would speculate that the runtime on a single charge would be at least a week.

Another thing that I like about these lights is you don't have to mount any magnets or halbach sensors on the bike frame, the internal circuity is able to sense the wheel rpms without any external input. Also when you slow down below the persistence of vision optical illusion effect the light will automatically switch to a night rider effect with alternating colors.


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## Itinerantum (Feb 6, 2019)

nbritton said:


> Anyone have experience with the FT-801 Pro 416 LED color wheel display? I bought two of them the other day on a lark and now they're on the boat coming from China. I'll put up a review when I get them but I was wondering if anyone knew anything more about them. Looking at a screenshot of the programming application the name of the device is actually referred to as the FTL FH-801 Pro, and my best guess at the moment is that it's made by Shenzhen Bao Tianxiang Technology Co., Ltd.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hello everyone! I have a question: Where can I download the Software for creating the images, it is called "FTL Bike Wheel monitor FH801Pro V03.205" or something like that? Thanks!﻿ 
Iti.


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## Itinerantum (Feb 6, 2019)

Hello, Where can I download the Software for creating the images, it is called "FTL Bike Wheel monitor FH801Pro V03.205" or something like that? Thanks!﻿


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## allenhuffman (Aug 8, 2015)

nbritton said:


> Anyone have experience with the FT-801 Pro 416 LED color wheel display?
> …
> Here is a link I found very helpful on persistence of vision wheel displays:
> 
> Bike Lights | Sub-Etha Software


Sorry to bump an old topic. I found this while searching for information on this FT-801 display. (And happy to see someone found my old page, trying to document these things.) It was sold on Amazon, for awhile, but not currently. 

For the past several years, I have been riding a chainless bike (with a hub gear read wheel) and now an eBike (which a motor hub wheel) so nothing fits or works with those, but this type (arms not physically attached) looks like it could, depending on wheel size.

The quest continues… (And the amount of comments I’ve received over the years, starting with a simple solid color display building up to color displays, is staggering. No local bike shops seem to sell these, and most have never seen them. Always starts a conversation or gets a beer bought for me ;-)


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