You got jokes. I appreciate the offer tho.
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Hey guys, sorry i’ve been ghost for a while. School turned up to an 11 and my free time went from an hour a day to negative 3 hours a day. Makes as much sense to me as it does to you, trust me. Senior engineering capstone projects eat up too much time.
I am placing an order from a new supplier for headlights/taillight as I type this, and I am attempting to move from 18650’s to lipo’s for the headlight. I have had reliability issues with my last batch and I am searching for the balance of cost to performance so everyone wins. I am doing these batches in sets of 30-50 to save $ so isolating a good provider is kinda tough.
I am also in the works with a few people about turning this into a real business. Etsy has a few fee’s that increase the price of my lights a few dollars, and realistically I am limiting myself by not having a website for my products. I will be eventually getting a trademark, creating a website, and possibly setting my sights on shredlight’s if I can find the right investors or have enough capital. I want to produce and sell my gearbox I am working on as well, which is literally done minus testing (again, no time to even CNC the plates).
I am graduating this spring and will be jumping right into a full time mechanical engineering job, but I will actually gain some free time ironically. It will also allow me to focus more on this hobby and finish up some pet projects I have.
I will still never sell anything that hasn’t been tested by the community, and I appreciate those who ordered near the beginning of my hiatus that had to wait a while for their stuff.
My new lights should be in early January and ill be ramping production back up. I am also working on a Version 3 for my lights so keep an eye out for a post about that eventually.
If anyone needs replacements or their stuff got damaged for any reason just shoot me a PM here and if I don’t respond right away hit up etsy and i’ll get you sorted!
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Good to see ya around.
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I’m interested in the light but why move away from 18650? I’m assuming with lipo you can’t swap out the batteries as easily
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The 18650’s in the current headlights are hard soldered in, so replacing them isn’t super easy.
That being said, the move to lipo’s is for two main reasons:
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They have the same or even higher capacity as the 18650’s, but have much higher discharge rating meaning they are less stressed when pulling around an amp from the Cree XML LED. This means they are less likely to fail prematurely, and less likely to lose capacity over time. I just had someone comment on their light they’ve had for 4 or 5 months about how their light has slightly less run time than it originally did. It has to do with the fact that they aren’t using high quality 18650’s in their lights, and unless I order 500 or more of them I don’t have a say in what 18650’s they use, unfortunately. With the lipo, I know who manufactures it and that it’s been proven in other flashlights.
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The lipo is lighter, and less prone to physical damage. The lipo is much smaller than the 18650, and inside the light it is entirely encased in foam shielding whereas the 18650 has a small ring of foam around it because it basically fills the entire light. I have had several lights fail to charge or turn on after some rough rides, and its mostly due to the tight fit the 18650 has causing wires to break, shorts, etc. These lights are normally meant for bikes or helmets where they see less vibration, so the lipo replacing the 18650 free’s up some space, adds some more foam vibration protection, and reduces the weight of the light.
Also, you can still open it up and solder in any 18650 of your choosing, including super high capacity ones. I did that to a test light a long time ago and got something like 4 hours of use. They light runs off a single lipo/li-ion cell. Replacing is not tough by any means, but I’d rather not make people do that if they have issues with their 18650’s that come from the factory.
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Good to hear @Genex. Thanks for shipping my order out pretty quick over then thanksgiving holidays.
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Hey buddy glad to have you back
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@Genex, my light randomly stopped working although it has only been used twice since I bought it. Do you know if other brands of lights might fit the mount as well? Otherwise what is the brand to throw in my amazon cart?
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I had a few bad batches and switched the supplier as of about two weeks ago. The only brand I would buy from is Blitzu if you are buying from amazon. They purchase from the OEM that designed this light originally and use a lipo battery and in general have better build quality and components. Tons of suppliers just stole the design and cut corners as is typical, so it took me reaching out to about 16 different suppliers to find the original one.
I switched to the same OEM supplier and have the same exact lights as blitzu minus the lettering and emblem. If you want that exact light I can just sell you one on discount since you probably had a light from the bad batch. just PM and and i’ll hook you up.
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Same. Light just stopped working. Helmet light still going strong. I dont think the lights can handle the vibrations
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Just spent the day thinking about if I wanted to build a DIY light then mount that to my helmet…
Then ordered two of these.
Hope they fulfill my every hope and desire.
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