Cycling UK Forum

Have recently aquired one with some other bids and bobs and fitted it out of interest. In use it's almost inaudible, makes no noticeable difference to pedal effort and provides good light output. Doesn't slip in the wet but then I've never had a bottle dynamo slip either Why is the Soubitez no longer made - have the company gone bust or is it just they're not fashionable?

Technonlgy has moved on. Even bottle dynamo's are on the wane. Hub dynamo's are now what people want.

I had one for many years. Absolutely fantastic bit of kit!

The Sanyo version wasn't very good, and the later Soubitez weren't good either. I know this from reading this forum.

You probably have one like mine. Silent and powerful, totally sealed against the weather, and no slipping in the wet. I sold mine, and to be honest, I wish I hadn't.

Big T wrote:Technonlgy has moved on. Even bottle dynamo's are on the wane. Hub dynamo's are now what people want.

As I recall hub dynamos were far more prevalent in the 50s , 60s and 70s. Almost every bike made then with hub gears(the majority) also had a hub dynamo.

Bottom bracket dynamos are mounted in the dirtiest place on the bike. As soon as you ride on mucky roads they get clogged up with mud between the roller and mounting, and they don't tend to last all that long compared with an equivalent standard bottle. Their advantage over a bottle is that they don't wear the tyre sidewall and you can use them on lightweight tyres. The drag is much the same.
In Germany, a lot of them used to be mounted on the underside of a front rack, running on the front tyre. This was a cleaner location and they lasted well.

Once decent dub dynamos came along the German commuter market switched to lower drag and more reliable hubs and they were no longer competetive.

Sanyos used to have slip problems, early Soubitez were good but they later changed the bearings to a basic nylon bushing that didn't last, especially at speed. Last to go was the Union 8601 with a remote cable on/off control up the back of the seat tube.

1960s Sturmey hub dynamos were only about 2W - noticeably less bright than sidewall dynamos.

I agree with what you say, Andrew, but not all of it.

My Soubitez didn't drag like a bottle dynamo, in fact the drag was hardly noticeable. Mine lasted for donkey's years, and I sold it to a grateful buyer.

Mick F wrote:I agree with what you say, Andrew, but not all of it.

My Soubitez didn't drag like a bottle dynamo, in fact the drag was hardly noticeable. Mine lasted for donkey's years, and I sold it to a grateful buyer.

My Axa-HR dynamo has no noticeable drag. However it is noisy however if fitted on the rear wheel it is barely audible; I tried a front wheel arrangement and that was noisy.

I never had any type of under-the-BB dynamo but I was often tempted because battery lamps used to be so poor. At the time, I was more attracted by the principle than individual makes but all the talk seemed to be of slipping in the wet and the negative effects generally of being on the wettest, muckiest place on the bike. My lighting need then was for winter commuting and winter riding generally rather than riding through the night on a Summer marathon ride so I was particularly influenced by the likely effects of all the salt and wet.

We did go through a period of some short-lived bright ideas - I remember seeing one or two on stands at the York Rally and in CJ's reviews - mainly gadgets powered by rubber bands or gears driven by the front hub or even spokes. There also were some hiher powered bottle dynamoes, but it seems to me that modern hub dynamoes have now demonstrated their superiority. I suppose it's been a combination of the influence of the German regs imposing compulsory dynamoes, teutonic efficiency, and the Japanese approach of rethinking everything.

Somebody once asked whatever happened to the man who used to make sure the contacts in Ever Ready lamps were unreliable - RIP.

When they first came out I had a Sanyo and later a Soubitez: both had problems in the wet, and both died a mud-death.

Many of the perceived drawbacks of BB generators mentioned seem to relate to it being in one of the muckiest places on the bike. Mick had no problems with his. From his postings here I'd guess he keeps his bikes reasonably clean. I suspect both are related.

pete75 wrote:...From his postings here I'd guess he keeps his bikes reasonably clean. I suspect both are related.

But they still get dirty when you ride them !! (I forgot to mention that I took to keeping a small plastic bag covering the dynamo when it was not in use, but this was not enough !!)

fatboy wrote:

Mick F wrote:I agree with what you say, Andrew, but not all of it.

My Soubitez didn't drag like a bottle dynamo, in fact the drag was hardly noticeable. Mine lasted for donkey's years, and I sold it to a grateful buyer.

My Axa-HR dynamo has no noticeable drag. However it is noisy however if fitted on the rear wheel it is barely audible; I tried a front wheel arrangement and that was noisy.

For various values of noticeable.

The Soubitez was like a good (normal*) bottle dynamo, the Union was like a mediocre one.
(* discounting the later high tech bottles like the Lightspin and B+M S6 which were up there with hub dynamos as far as drag was concerned, and cost almost as much as a Schmidt).

I remember the gap above the roller getting packed solid with mud so the roller just slipped when you turned the dynamo on. You could get enough mud in during a ride, though it was worse if it dried in place between rides. The mud was usually from country lanes during field ploughing season rather than from off road riding.

The other thing I found was that riding on nearly dry roads with lights on resulted in lumps of dried mud building up on the roller, causing fairly bad vibration. You'd have to stop and pick it off with a screwdriver or metal tyre lever.
I think what happened was that you'd get a damp patch on the roller, a bit of dust from the dry section of road would stick and dry in place, the dried dust held the dampness a bit longer next time you went through a damp bit of road, and so the next bit of dust from a dry section was more likely to stick in the same place.

I'm wondering what, if any, front mudguards some of you use. SInce I replaced my knackered sks guards with stronglight ones which have a shaped plastic extension at the bottom of the front my BB area has remained fairly clean. My other touring bike has Esge mudguards which have a large mudflap on the front and again the BB are remains fairly clean. BTW does anyone know what happened to Esge - my pair are the best part of 20 years old but have yet to suffer the white discolouration that seems to affect so many SKS guards.

IIRC ESGE went bust and were bought out by SKS.
Personally I make mudflaps from old supermarket meat packaging trays. 2 minutes with a pair of scissors, they last 6 months or so and can be big enough to keep the feet dry.

Front mudflaps don't help a BB dynamo all that much. The bulk of the muck is what comes out of the front end of the rear mudguard. Normally it just goes straight down onto the ground, but a BB dynamo is perfectly placed to catch it first.