Dynamo system choices

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meic
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by meic »

But my Thorn Club Tour fork crown is designed to have the guard screwed on directly upwards, meaning there is no hole at the front of the crown

My Thorn Club Tour Forks have the mudguard fitting beneath as you say but there is also a hole in the front of the crown where my light is fitted!
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PH
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by PH »

meic wrote:
But my Thorn Club Tour fork crown is designed to have the guard screwed on directly upwards, meaning there is no hole at the front of the crown

My Thorn Club Tour Forks have the mudguard fitting beneath as you say but there is also a hole in the front of the crown where my light is fitted!

Both Thorns I've had have been the same, otherwise it's no big deal to drill a hole, or you can use an L shaped bracket that attaches to the under fork mudguard holes, this could also be extended under the straddle cable.
pwa
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by pwa »

PH wrote:
meic wrote:
But my Thorn Club Tour fork crown is designed to have the guard screwed on directly upwards, meaning there is no hole at the front of the crown

My Thorn Club Tour Forks have the mudguard fitting beneath as you say but there is also a hole in the front of the crown where my light is fitted!

Both Thorns I've had have been the same, otherwise it's no big deal to drill a hole, or you can use an L shaped bracket that attaches to the under fork mudguard holes, this could also be extended under the straddle cable.


Just a blank painted surface on the front of my fork crown. It is quite a few years old, so they have probably changed the design now. I'm sure I could buy or make a fork crown fitting that would work, but there is so much going on in that area, with the mudguard fittings, the straddle wire and the headset, that the simplicity of putting the light near the handlebar stem is very appealing. I don't have much other stuff up there, so I have room. I like the idea of getting the lamp directly in front of the stem, possibly lowered a touch.

I have considered whether the lamp will be too high there to give a good beam pattern, but when I thought about it I realised that the height difference compared to a raised fork crown mounting is slight. A few cm. I doubt that will make a meaningful difference to the beam on the road, other than taking out the mudguard shadow.

My secondary light will probably be a AA battery light. I already have a Hope Vision 1, which I have had for ages and am very fond of. But it may or may not do the job. Secondary front lights, for me, have two jobs to do. Firstly, they get you home safely when your primary light fails. And for that practically any light will do. But their other function is to fill in where the primary light is weak. So, for example, if I had a main light that chucked a load of light down the road but left dark areas to the sides, close to the bike, I'd want a secondary light that has a wide spread that I can direct more downwards , perhaps on a low setting, just for the sideways spill that helps on tight low speed turns. The beam on the Hope is a bit narrow for that role.
pwa
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by pwa »

old_windbag wrote:I know that better waterproofing etc are cited as the benefits of edelux 2 but at £45 I feel my B+M cyo premium is a better buy against £120 for the edelux. My cyo premium has sat on my bike for coming up to 4yrs even when not active if has still been subject to all year conditions as it is on the bike I use throughout winter( low temperatures, driving rain, salt sea air ). The beams are to all intents identical too.

It's a great value light with an excellent beam pattern( full width of c-roads plus the verges ). The luxos which I was tempted by did have features perhaps pwa may like, on the luxos u it had light distribution variation by speed.... sadly they never put that on the lower cost B variant. So I opted for cyo premium and feel it was the right choice.

Edit: oh and I thought the edelux1 was effectively the original cyo with the edelux 2 being equivalent to cyo premium. The beam width is better on cyo premium/edelux2.


UPDATE

In the end I did opt for a version of the Cayo Premium 80 lux, with the daylight running and standlight. I've ordered it from Rose at just over £50, trying to keep to budget options rather than "the best money can buy". It is for commuting after all. The Cayo Premium seemed the best bangs for bucks option. Thanks for the recommendation.

The wheel is ordered from Spa. An SP (non-disc version) again as a budget option. I can cope with disassembly and sending it off for new bearings in a couple of years if it comes to that.

The rim is to be an Exal LX17 because it matches the tyre widths I use and it is only 3mm different in ideal spoke requirement to the still good Grizzly CSS rim on the front wheel that will be coming off that bike. So when the new LX rim eventually reaches the end of its life there is a reasonable chance that I will be able to re-rim with old CSS rim. Well, that's the theory. I'll settle for having to buy another LX17 if need be.

I'm going to mount the lamp from the bars, directly in front of (possibly slightly lower than) the front of the stem, using one of those twin arm B&M brackets.

The whole lot comes to a bit under £200, which I think is pretty good going.

I should start getting the components over the next few days and I will report on any assembly issues and, of course, impressions of the system in use.

Thanks to all for your thoughts, which were very helpful.
pwa
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by pwa »

Well, just fitted everything and I've never seen so much flickering from a light! At 10mph, riding around the street, a really unpleasant high speed ficker. All connections good as far as I can tell, using the standard SP plug arrangement at the hub. Two short leads for rear light (not wanted) just wrapped individually and tucked away.

The hub is an SP PV8 and the lamp is a Cyo T Premium 80 lux with senso and daylight etc.

Hope I don't have a problem with the lamp itself because I got it from Germany.

Any ideas?
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NUKe
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by NUKe »

Check your connections, they will flicker a little but this should cease above walking pace? The whine does happen when LED get old and are failing, but don't rule out the easy stuff first. Are the connectors the right way round? are they a good connection ?
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pwa
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by pwa »

Seems better now. Needs testing in the dark. I wonder if, fresh out of the box, the lamp was charging the capacitor and the excessive flicker had something to do with that. It now stops serious flickering at cruising speed and possibly at lower speeds. Will report back.
old_windbag
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by old_windbag »

pwa wrote:Well, just fitted everything and I've never seen so much flickering from a light! At 10mph, riding around the street, a really unpleasant high speed ficker.


My setup is the shimano dh3n80 with cyo premium( and b+m bar mount ). My light will flicker up to around 5mph max then all's well in the world and a straightforward beam. I'm pretty fussy about flickering beam like that but I've found no issue to fault so far as it's so rare to be under the flicker speed and standlight is good. So if there was any issue I'd expect it to be in the difference between the two dynamos SP and shimano. Hopefully theres no issue though.( Never looked into the electronics of the light but I'd expect in effect a rectifier front end with a PWM buck controller driving the LED. You can see the current required for a given luminous flux and control around that current.)

The bar mount makes headlight allignment much easier as you'll find a degree or two of fine tuning in level will pay dividends in beam performance. This can be done with mount slightly slack as you cycle and tiny nudges until spot on and tighten.

If you have any problems that need interaction with rose I doubt you'll have any big issues, they are very reputable.

Keep updating as I think we'd all like a happy ending :) .
pwa
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by pwa »

old_windbag wrote:
pwa wrote:Well, just fitted everything and I've never seen so much flickering from a light! At 10mph, riding around the street, a really unpleasant high speed ficker.


My setup is the shimano dh3n80 with cyo premium( and b+m bar mount ). My light will flicker up to around 5mph max then all's well in the world and a straightforward beam. I'm pretty fussy about flickering beam like that but I've found no issue to fault so far as it's so rare to be under the flicker speed and standlight is good. So if there was any issue I'd expect it to be in the difference between the two dynamos SP and shimano. Hopefully theres no issue though.( Never looked into the electronics of the light but I'd expect in effect a rectifier front end with a PWM buck controller driving the LED. You can see the current required for a given luminous flux and control around that current.)

The bar mount makes headlight allignment much easier as you'll find a degree or two of fine tuning in level will pay dividends in beam performance. This can be done with mount slightly slack as you cycle and tiny nudges until spot on and tighten.

If you have any problems that need interaction with rose I doubt you'll have any big issues, they are very reputable.

Keep updating as I think we'd all like a happy ending :) .


All seems much better now. I had a quick word with a very nice man at Spa who suggested the capacitor was totally devoid of charge and that a couple of minutes of cycling might be all it needed. I tried that and and it improved a lot. Then I had to go off and attend to a few other things.

But I've just been down the nearest available dark lane to adjust the lamp angle as required, and while at 10mph putting my hand in front of the beam still reveals a high frequency flicker, to the eye the beam on the road looks constant. Obviously at walking speed the light dims a lot, but it doesn't become an annoying flicker on the road surface.

Beam width is good. And I can light up a dark lane to a good distance, seeing all that I need to see. It is not powerful in the way that some mega bright battery lights are, but it puts a good pool of adequate light on a large area. And that is ideal. It means I'm seeing what I want to without worrying about blinding anyone else. And this was all on a wet lane. On a dry lane it will look even better.

I'll be using it alongside a Hope Vision 1 battery light as I never like to have to rely on one lighting system. The Hope will be used on a lowish setting, acting as a sort of back-up. I run it on long lasting rechargeables, meaning that I get a full week of use from one charge and just recharge on Saturdays.
old_windbag
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by old_windbag »

I still carry a back up light just in case but i donvt have it mounted and lit. So it remains charged. As with so much in cycling we carry extra weight just in case. I now have a headtorch that i acquired for loft work. But i chose its modes to give good light output for a few hours for cycling, again a useful backup and i feel beneficial for dark repairs, punctures and the like.

In my 4yrs with the cyo premium i can't think of a time when i thought i need more light than it offers. But thats for my type off cycling, roads and sustrans tracks etc. I wouldn't be doing 40 down a descent but why would you want to in pitch dark and wildlife abounding, that would be courting problems. So for the price it's not bad at all. The beam width is definitely part of it's appeal and its road user friendly beam. Many have told they thought i was a motorbike, not in a critical way, but in a positive way that i was clear to see for a good distance.
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Gattonero
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by Gattonero »

pwa wrote:...
Very useful. Thanks. So far as beam pattern is concerned, on the dark lanes I have to do acute low speed turns in a couple of places, so I want a useful bit of light going off into the hedges just a few metres in front. A wide beam. I'm okay with that wider area being less intense than the main beam down the road, since it is lighting up something closer. But I don't want to be turning into an unlit patch because my beam is too narrow to deal with it. I'd prefer a slightly less powerful reach down the road if it means a bit wider beam up close.

Some lamps seem to have a cache battery. The word "battery" seems to me to imply "limited lifespan". I'd prefer to avoid that. And I'm not interested in USB stuff. It doesn't last long indoors, so putting it outdoors sounds like a bad idea.


Unfortunately you will have to resort to a "flood" type of battery light if you want to cope with tight-turns in complete safety, no light I know has a beam that is wide enough. In fact, you should consider a helmet-mounted light as it's done on Mtb's for riding at night: flood light on the bars and narrow-beam on the helmet. This makes you get the light where you are actually looking (the light moves with your head).

As far as the "cache battery" on dynamo lights, it's almost alway done with capacitors so the lifespan is pretty good
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Brucey
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by Brucey »

the IQ-X has a noticeably better spread than some other models, and should allow fairly tight turns to be negotiated with confidence.

cheers
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Samuel D
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by Samuel D »

A problem with tight turns is that they call for low speed that greatly reduces beam strength and causes flickering. But this still isn’t a practical problem for me more than once in a blue moon. At worst, you can use the standlight to see your way around at sub-walking pace. With fork-mounted lamps, the light can be aimed where you want if you’re going slowly enough.
SA_SA_SA
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by SA_SA_SA »

pwa wrote:....I had a quick word with a very nice man at Spa who suggested the capacitor was totally devoid of charge and that a couple of minutes of cycling might be all it needed. I tried that and and it improved a lot.....

I wish such modern hub dynamo lamps had a separate DC input: then a small alkaline battery pack (3 to four cells?) could be used to keep the smoothing cap topped up when dynamo is running but can't prevent flicker (Surely German epileptics should be demanding the Stzvo tighten up their rules to require cleverer circuitry (without batteries hopefully) to avoid such flicker?).
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andrew_s
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Re: Dynamo system choices

Post by andrew_s »

Brucey wrote:the IQ-X has a noticeably better spread than some other models, and should allow fairly tight turns to be negotiated with confidence.

cheers

The beam width doesn't really help.
With the sharp cut off, and the bike leaning over into the corner, the inside edge of the beam just lights the near part of the verge, and you still can't see round the corner. If you slow down enough to keep the bike upright, you don't really need the light.
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