B&M Luxos U - first impressions. UPDATE lamp failure

[pherron]

I recently managed to get a Luxos U from Germany, via the internet. First impressions, Mein Gott! It's big. That is to say if you like the minimalist charm of the Cyo, then you're out of luck. This is about twice the size in volume I would say. Reminiscent of a battle ship some how, so I've dubbed it the Bismarck.

It wasn't hard to wire up. It has the advantage that unlike the Cyo you can completely disconnect the front cable. It has four connectors, + & - in and out (rear lamp). The handlebar switch/USB port connects via a headphone style jack plug into the side of the lamp body. The switch is mounted with either an O ring or zip tie (both supplied). The jack plug cable can't be shortened so I had to loop it around my brake cable lots of times. Not especially pretty. Once all up and running I found I had to read the instructions. Generally I'm the type that follows the "real men don't read instructions" school of thought, but I found I needed to as it is complicated. There are lots of different colour lights on the back of the lamp and on the handlebar switch. Amber on the lamp = light on; blue = flood beam on; green = tail light connected. On the handlebar blue = flood beam; red = USB power available. You can make it flash too by pressing the handlebar switch briefly when the lamp is off. You can turn the lighting on and off by depressing the button (either handlebar or lamp) for more than a second. When switched on it runs a daylight setting in the day and senses the dark to automatically to turn on the main light.

The cache battery has to be charged by a few minutes of riding before everything works well. The USB power, the flood beam, standlight and the panorama light all rely on the cache battery. The panorama light is the close up very wide light that kicks in below 15 kmh. You can't really charge anything when the light is in use (100 mA output versus 1000 mA when the light is off).

My first brief test ride I was not that impressed with the beam at first, then on came the red light, followed by the headlight revving up to full effect. My memory then engaged from reading the instructions. It diverts some of it's efforts to charging the cache battery before supplying all it's effort to the headlamp. The light is quite impressive. The flood beam is definitely brighter (90 lux versus 70 lux). It will run for about 15 mins once the cache battery is fully charged according to the instructions. The panorama light switching in is very subtle, at lower speeds (less the 15kmh it says) the extra LEDs in the top of the lamp come on and flood the area all around the front wheel so that your near field lighting improves, whilst the main LED drops down. As you speed up it reverts to full power on the main beam, lighting the road up very well. The beam is brighter and much wider than my old Cyo. It is a very shaped beam, with very little light wasted into lighting up the heavens, most of it is where you need it.

On a club run today I had a go at charging things. First off I hooked up a Samsung Galaxy Ace phone, which charged fine, but I did find that it outpaced the cache battery, so that if I went below about 8mph it stopped charging. As soon as I sped up my phone beeped to say it was charging again. It caused no problem. I disconnected the phone for 10 mins to let the cache battery charge up and this stopped the effect for a little while but it soon happened again. In 2 hours of slow riding to the tea stop / 19 miles (we had 4 new riders out and it was very windy) my phone went from 37% charge to 84% charge. On a tour it would be fine. After tea I plugged in my Garmin Edge 800. This had no problems with the cache battery and carried on charging even when I stopped. By the time I got home (similar distance back) the Garmin was fully charged and running off the dynamo happily.

In conclusion it is very bright and very large. The beam is very impressive both in power and in shape. The USB power supply works well, but more demanding gadgets may outpace the cache battery. Still very early days, so I'll report back if needed.

A few not so great pictures starting here http://www.flickr.com/photos/13469967@N02/8641422906/in/photostream

[JulesDawes]

Great review, thanks very much. Sounds like a great upgrade to my Cyo when, if ever it gives up the ghost!

[pherron]

UPDATE

Well so much for German reliability. After two camping tours and 6 months of reliability my Luxos completely failed at the end of November . All this just as winter arrived; not pleasing. It could still generate a small light output from the cache battery but it seemed incapable of receiving power from the hub generator. After triple checking the wiring and the hub I packaged it all up and sent it back to the very helpful German online retailer I had purchased from; they then returned it to B&M. All that of course takes much time and 4 weeks later I just got a brand new replacement lamp in the post. Interestingly they have changed the design. The USB socket/handle bar switch is now permanently wired into the lamp where as before it was plugged in via a headphone type mini jack plug. Perhaps this was a source if water ingress that caused problems. No covering note so I don't know if B&M even tried to work out what was wrong. I understand that there have been some improvements to the cache battery since my early model - time will tell. My original lamp cache could not keep pace with a smartphone when riding so that the phone would beep loudly every time the power kicked back in in an irritating fashion. Time will tell if this replacement can outlast the first. It is the only failure I have had from multiple B&M products. One thing has not changed; it is still flippin' ugly!

[stewartpratt]

Interesting. Keep us posted. I ordered the original early on but it didn't arrive until last spring, and I've been off the bike this winter, so it's not been used yet. Will be a bit annoyed if the early ones were lemons

[trieste]

I'd be grateful if you could post a link to photos of the updated lamp especially closeups of the items changed from the currently available material.

[pherron]

Will do later this weekend. Main difference is that where the USB socket/switch cable plugged into the side of the lamp with a 3.5mm jack plug, it is now permanently wired in. I understand from a comment on the web link below that it is because water ingress was causing failures. As mine was out in several heavy downpoors this is quite possibly why it failed: http://swhs.home.xs4all.nl/fiets/tests/verlichting/koplampen/BM_luxos/index_en.html

[pherron]

Here is a picture of the new lamp:

And here is the original:

I think you can see the clear difference even though they are from different angles.

[andrew_s]

From what I read, the handlebar switch was changed from plug-in to permanently wired because too many people were ignoring the instructions, and running the cable direct from the handlebars to the light without looping it through the mount as in your photo.
The result of a direct cable run is that any water hitting the cable runs straight down it and into the plug socket, with consequent failure.

[pherron]

Interesting that mine still failed then. I did get caught in some really heavy downpours when touring, plus my bike was outside on the campsite overnight.

[Bicycler]

I did get caught in some really heavy downpours when touring, plus my bike was outside on the campsite overnight.

Just not good enough in this day and age is it? The people who are willing to spend money on £100 dynamo lights are generally serious cyclists, many of whom will be commuters, tourists and audaxers out in all weathers. they're meant to be 'fit and forget', so should be expected to be left on the bike in the rain on occasion. When dynamos and lamps were cheap it might have been acceptable, but expensive lamps like these shouldn't be letting water in the way that they do

[pherron]

Agreed. My experience with the Cyo has been truly fit and forget so I have been very disappointed by the Luxos failing. It was very good while it worked, but as you say, it's not good enough that it wasn't weather proof. Hopefully they have now addressed this.

[rootes]

Hiya, any further update re reliability since you had the updated model?

Regards
SI

[redfacedbaldfatman]

I got mine October 2014 and no problems, it has been very useful. In the past I carried a usb battery pack to charge my iphone when on long rides (as I use GPS) but no need now, the Luxos U keeps it at 100%.

[pherron]

The replacement Luxos I received is still working well. The cache battery is a considerable improvement over the early model and holds enough to keep charging my Galaxy S3 phone even when I'm climbing steep hills fully laden with camping gear. I haven't exposed it to much rain but it has not given any hint of a problem so far. I have an 8 day camping trip doing the Lon Las Cymru and a bit more in 3 weeks so hopefully it will perform well.

[sprogg77]

Hi pherron. It's 2016 now, how's the Luxos fairing?