[Closed] Lumicycle Halogen to LED conversion with piccies and a step by step guide.

Got two cans for you with bar mounts ...you about tomorrow?
Nice work

Should be

Txt me and we will sort somat out.

Nice

good guide. Used the ebay drivers on my quad XRE kit. Very useful and simple. Hadn't see the sink idea before saves making one from aluminium.
Simple and they work really well and fully upgradable. Not quite so good for lumicycle though.
Will be in touch re a group order soon.
Mike

Cheers guys.

Just needed to get that built and then i'll get the orders in for the cutter shipment. I'll be in touch in the next day or so or early next week at the latest.

The use of the Heatsink form Ebay saves anybody turning anything. just needs a file/hacksaw and your sorted.

Nice post. Have three lights here that need converting when you have a price please! 😉

What case temperatures are you getting?

Does it matter which wires from the lumicycle looms get soldered on to the circuit board?

Also the same question for the LED?

and can you give a link to a suitable LED

I am going to buy a soldering iron and give this a go

thanks

no idea snaps.

Some guys have been running them on here with hardly any heattransfer/sink for a couple of years so i thought it should be OK.

I'll leave it on tomorrow and see how hot it gets.

Thats about the biggest hetasink you can get in with a switch and connector.( ie about 6mm) Remove those and you should be able to get anothet 5mm or so. Which would be more than ample IMHO.

What's the advantage of thi over the halogen bulbs? Is it a case of longer burn time. I get 3.3hrs on a 20w flood with my enduro battery. Any idea what the equivalent would be with the conversion?

What sort of battery life are you expecting/getting from that setup? My Lumi battery is on its 4th winter and I only get a couple of hours out of a 12W spot and 10W flood running together.

Would be seriously interested in sending mine to you Chucky if you're starting up a mod service, but only if I'm going to get at least 2.5-3hrs with two lights...

Kona TC - yes & yes
Chucky - I'm using an 11mm heatsink on cans with twice the thickness alloy & they're triggering the thermal trip on a bflex after 6 minutes @ 14C ambient
squeekybrakes - LED is much more efficient, longer burntime & more light

The LED's are equivilent to about 40W ish halogen (prepares to be shot down), but only draw 680ma. Not sure how this compares to say a 20w halogen for current draw and subsequent run times.

Will put a link up tomorrow for the LED's Kona and I'll answer your wires to what queation tomorrow as well.

Mrs C is shouting at me as we are late for going out, so i'll post a bit more tomorrow.

See ya

Interested in this.
Is this the item I need to buy from cutter if I want to go for a 4LED MR11 replacement?
http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut759

Truly excellent effort. Informative with good results - top stuff!!

I recently posted my conversion of a normal 6v 4200mAh standard twin-head Smart light to a 7.2v 10,000mAh halogen unit (brighter than a Hope Vision 4 when I finished) onto another forum, but this is one step above that.

Yeah, good post. I don't know how close a fit the heatsink is, but I found that a cut down beer can as a shim helps for a snug fit in my setup. I might convert my second lamp unit, so would be interested in getting all the bits from one place (yep, v lazy) adam@titley.org

guys...on a related topic - has anyone ever upgraded a Hope Vision 2 mk1 with the latest LED technology?

old git, be interested to see your efforts with the smart light, I'm running one of those as a temporary light until I'm sure night riding doesn't scare me too much! my email's in my profile if you've got any info, or a link would be ace! cheers

Converted one, a bit like yours.
For the second (to be used on commuter), I've been lazy and ordered one of these:
[url= http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut947 ]single LED, drop in job[/url]

Right gents,

some quastions answered

Kona , as snaps pointed out it does matter. If you are using a lumicycle battery this is negative centre (the pin on the battery) this wire from the power connector goes to the - on the driver. The other goes to the + on the driver. The LED's are marked + and - these go to the corresponding LED = and - on the driver as well (4 soldered connections on the driver, 2 x from the lumi wires and 2 from the LED's).

The LED's you require are here

[url] http://www.cutter.com.au/categories.php?cat=Cree+LEDS [/url]

choose XRE then on this 'XR-E (3x)Mounted on Triple PCB for MR11' pull down menu choose the R2 option. TBH either the R2 or the Q5 will do. It's just the R2 is a tiny bit brighter.

The optic is here

[url] http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut781 [/url]

choose the triple narrow from the pull down menu.

At a cost of only £4 you may want to try the medium as well, I just found it a bit 'floody'. They are easy to swap, just unscrew the bezel and swap the optic.

That link Rangerbill is to the mounting board only, you need the link above to get the mounting board with the LED's attached.

It really is a simple, 6 solder task and gives a great light. I'll try a bit of testing with respect to heat transfer etc tonight and get back on here later.

AdamT a cutter order is going in early next week, if you want to buy some stuff as part of that it will help split postage between a few of us. I can order the stuff no problem.

Curly68, I was not really looking to convert any for other people, I'll think about it. I put the instructions up so you could have a go yourself.

speak to you later after some testing.

Chucky

very interested to hear how this gets on with heat re Snaps' comment but am going to consider some riveted and heat pasted fin surface to aid cooling i think as its such a neat conversion.

Chucky have you tried it next to a normal halogen lump 20w for comparison?

good post. just out of interest, what's the cost, roughly?

Not tried it against a 20w halogen, sorry. I'll see if I can get hold of one to compare.

cost = about £40.

Just had it running for 20 minutes in the house with no problems. The can gets warm but LED's are working perfectly.

House is about 23degC

Riding in lower temperatures together with air flow whilst moving should ensure a much lower temp.

wouldn't like to have my 20W halogen in the house for 20 minutes!

hows the colour? are they very blue?

hows the colour? are they very blue?

not really, more of very white. Much whiter than the yellow tinge of halogens.

Hi Chucky, I would like to perform this conversion on my elderly Lumis. I'd be very willing to join forces on a Cutter order to reduce postage costs etc. Is a larger order more likely to attract import tax / VAT though?

Is there any reason not to use an XPG triple rather than XPE? I realise that XPG-specific optics aren't available yet, but it seems that others are using XPE optics with XPG LEDs without much issue.

Cheers.

Your right Gray, however cutter seem to have sold out of XPG's for the moment.

and it's a good point about getting stung for import tax.

I have a HID I want to convert and i'm torn between a Quad XRE (because they have them in stock) or wait for the XPG triple.

Afew others on here want in on the order so we will see what others think WRT import tax etc.

Before committing on the cutter website I have added the optic kit at £7.50 and a XR-E (3x)Mounted on Triple PCB for MR11 for £30, do I need to order 3 Cree XR-E Power Leds at £5.45 each?

Those price Kona are in Australian $. the first two are the only ones you need. The XR-E (3x)Mounted on Triple PCB for MR11 is the board with the LED's already mounted on it.

The prices in £ are £19.56 for the LED and Board and £4.14 for the optic

The Lumi website quotes 650 lumens for the 20W halogen, which is slightly more than you've quoted for the triple LED conversion. If this is the case I'm a bit confused as to how the LEDs are equicalent to a 40w halogen?

The import tax thing is a lottery . . . you should budget on paying it, and it's a bonus if you don't . . .

Nice work on the small case conversion for all 😉

I suspect a higher power XP-G conversion will be much more marginal heat wise, but what you are doing should produce a lot less heat . . . External surface area is much more important than heatsink mass so, increasing the heatsink size inside the can will only delay the inevitable as the heat loss from the outside surface will not really be effected, in fact surface area to volume ratio reduces as you increase the can size which doesn't help 😉 . . . anyways, if it's enough it's enough . . . for reference my XP-G triple running at 1A stabilises at about 20-25C in a 5C ambient while riding with the lumi HID can . . . when stationary it rapidly heats up to 60C+, I have thermal cutout set at 90C . . . that can must have twice the surface area of the small lumi can plus fins . . .

I'm thinking of over currenting an XP-G conversion to 1200mA or 1300mA . . . there seems to be a large increase in light with current per some data I saw on CPF . . . but I suspect heat output would go through the roof too . . . ok in a larger case 😉

When cutter get XP-G's back in I'll try a small case version but I remain sceptical 😉

Fd

Ref brightness comparisons . . . some data I posted on another thread . . .

This is a lumicycle 20W halogen on a 13.2V NiMh battery (about 24W power consumption because the battery is 13.2V instead of 12)

[img] [/img]

This is a lumicycle HID on the same battery (about 11W power consumption)

[img] [/img]

This is an XP-G triple, medium (about 10W power consumption)

[img] [/img]

The LED consumes way less than 1/2 the power of the Halogen and produces way more light . . . and this LED is using a very floody optic, with a narrower optic you'd see it completely destroys it . . .

The HID is also pretty outclassed . . .

I would tend to agree, a 30+W Halogen may be close to the LED . . .

Note this is XP-G's at 1A not the LED's used above . . . but you get the general idea . . .

Fd

Chucky,

Awesome, informative and thank you very much. Posts like this aer brilliant and it is what makes this place great.

As and when you do the HID can conversion, do you think you could do a 'how to' like above for it? i have the hid and not the halogen and would be keen to give the HID conversion a go. Or if you don't have the HID can and fancy a go I am more than willing to let you use mine as a guinea pig 😉

Good work

The HID conversion is practically identical apart from the heatsink being different, I'm not sure if you can buy one that will work quite as well off the shelf, I posted a load of data on converting a HID case on this thread . . .

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/resurrecting-old-lumis

Heatsink dimensions I used :-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ziplockk/4089128329/

Conversion pics :-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ziplockk/sets/72157622494291417/

I used a bFlex driver and encased it in heatshrink, it just pops in the back of the case with loads of room to spare . . . drilled a 3mm hole in the back of the case axially for the battery warning LED. changed the existing switch for a momentary swicth to make the bFlex work properly (you could use a simpler and cheaper regulator, the guy Chucky suggests for his 650mA reg also sells a 950mA one which would be ideal for XP-G's for about a fiver, which is about 15 quid cheaper than a bFlex and would only give you full power but so what . . . ).

Again a simpler heatsink design may suffice but the interior of the case has a more complex profile and I wanted to take advantage of that . . .

Fd

Squeekybrakes, I have always assumed a HID was equivalent to approx 40watt Halogen.

600ish lumens [b]is about[/b] the same as a HID (the original ones, not the new ones) hence my comparison.

My battery is charge at the moment and Junkyard has just dropped off a 20watt halogen so i'll see how they compare later.

Regardless of actual Lumens it is nearly on par with my R2 XRE Lumi HID conversion and that runs at 1 amp.

Didn't mean to mislead you Squeeky.

I have already done a Lumi HID conversion marionheck (plus another 8 or so for my mates).

The piccy links to how I did it is here

[url] http://www.flickr.com/photos/17059060@N00/sets/72157605077985739/ [/url]

Fergusd has also done the same conversion with a slightly different heatsink but it's near as dammit the same.

Bloody hell Fergusd 1300mA with some XPG's. That will be bright and hot!

and I do like that LED touch on yours at the back of the case. Very nice.

I mangaed to find some ally bar on Ebay that fitted perfectly on my Lumi conversions. It literally was exactly the same in dia as the inside of the lumi HID case

The HID conversions I have done have run faultlessly for over 12 months

The LED in the pics does look like it outclasses the 20W halogen and the HID. Looks like I might try the conversion myself once the LEDs are in stock...

The kit is brighter than the halogen 20 watt one about 10 -20 % ish. It also draws less current and therefore i will run longer. It is not a super bright Trout light but it is perfectly adequate for off/road use without achieving the scorched earth of current systems. Pretty affordable upgrade to avoid Dx or torches IMHO.

I guess the XR-E board can be replaced with an XP-G one when they're available with no need to change the driver?

Nice one. That looks perfectly do-able.

Think I will be buying the bits once the drivers are back in stock with mr eBay.
Might do both cans and have a spot on one & a flood on the other.

So the driver runs at 680ma? Does that mean that is the current draw for all 3 LEDs on the board or each LED?
Is this next calc right.....? ~14v from the battery and the driver supplies 680ma, means that the power is 14x0.68 = 9.5W.
I assume from this, that the 680mA must be the complete board, not the individual LEDS (or else it would be running at ~30W)?
The above being correct - that means that the LED conversion is brighter than the 20W halogen, but actually uses less power than the 12W halogen?

Holy cow!!

spot on there Squeekybrakes.

Looking on the cutter website it seems he is running a 'back order' for the XPG's when he gets them in, so I have no idea how long it will be before he can dispatch them to us if we are to order them.

As I mentioned before a triple XRE R2 is a bright light. It's just the XPG's give about another 30% whilst using the same current.

stumpy01 - No, you need to know the input current drawn by the driver not 680mA (the constant current supplied to the LEDs) & battery voltage will gradually drop as the batteries discharge & will be less when under load.
The driver efficiency will also make a difference.

Now I have it working I am going to try and opu a resistor in the system with a two position switch. The instructions that came with the driver claim a 200k resistor will drop the current by half. The board will allow this driver to be switched in or out. This together with a new 2 position switch from maplins will give the ability to eek out far more battery life and hopefully alleviate concerns about heat by having 2 power settings. A low and a high.

Before I added the resistor to the one above I just wanted to make sure it all fitted first.

I'll see if i can get hold of a small resistor this week and then try to fit it in.

what diameter is the lumi can? just hatching similar conversion for old cateyes...

33mm Inside Diameter

The aluminium disc you used as a heasink is also available here

< http://www.wheelspinmodels.co.uk/car/item/HPI-72234-Traction-Control-Gear-Hub-9-X-33mm-Nitro-Mt__786f/>

Looks like the drivers are also avalable again through the ebay seller. Any ideas how long he boards take to arrive from cutter?

Cheers Squeeky. I noticed that seller only had one heatsink on ebay. so ta, least people have a chance of getting one from this alternative source.

I think if you get the XRE's from Cutter they will take 2 maybe 3 weeks. The XPG's are all on back order.

Damn, just ordered a quad XRE with a Vf of ~14v and my battery is only 13.2V (I've ordered the driver from the Ebay guy too). Assuming my understanding is correct, I really should have the voltage difference the other way round? Anything I can do? I do have an appropriate battery, but I'm trying to use an old Lumi bottle battery I've got. RTFM and all that!!

Woody, i'll have the quad off you when it arrives. Some of my mates will want to upgrade from their triples and we have 14.8v batteries so they will be fine.

Do you want me to add a triple XRE and narrow optic to my order?

Plus gents here are two comparison shots just taken

Brand new Lumi HID 6 deg

[img] [/img]

my halogen conversion using triple Q4 XRE and narrow cutter optic. driven at 670ma

[img] [/img]

woody2000 - you can use a different LED driver like the MaxFlex5 from Cutter. That actually needs the input voltage to be less than the total Vf of the LEDs, although this can lead to increased heat sinking requirements. Although if the nominal voltage from the battery is 13.2V I suspect it will be higher than 14V fresh of the charger. This will put the driver out of regulation meaning you can't dim the LEDs. Check out TaskLEDs website for all sorts of different driver options and info.

Hmmm, I take it that means it's a boo-boo then! I'll have a go at the conversion with the quad - I've got a 14.8V battery too from a Lumi HID, and I could always run the HID from the 13.2V battery. Bit underwhelmed with the HID TBH, I was expecting to be blown away, but it's not that bright really. Hey ho!

Thanks for the offer though Chucky, very good of you 😀

PS - great guide, really simplified the process for a numpty like me! Though a little knowledge is dangerous in my case! 🙂

Thanks for the info p_s 🙂

Oh and just a point on Chucky's comment on XPG stock at Cutter. As I understand it, it is only the R5s that are on back order. I've just ordered a triple board with XPG R4s and it went though ok. Last order took approx 9 days to be delivered.

No problem, offer stands if you change your mind

Though a little knowledge is dangerous

I think you will find we are [b]all[/b] guilty of that

good point Poisonspider.

that makes things better. are you using the XRE optics?

Cheers Chucky - just out of interest, when are you ordering?

Ta

Yes, it's the Ledil Cute 3 narrow spot. In fact I only ordered the stuff today, inspired by your post using the Lumi can.
Using the Lumi can was my original intention but I got side tracked with a 7up XPG R5 Maglite conversion which I still haven't built yet. This should put out about 2450 lumens (that's a lot). However machining the Mag head was too much of a faff so I'm having a custom housing made by a local machine shop. Should be picking it up this week.

2450 lumens !!!! bloody hell. Your giving troute and run for his money with that one.

Just looked on the site and noticed the XPG optic is now back in.

Looks like thats the one to have.

end of this week woody, thats when the order is going in

Nice one, I'll drop you a mail if I change my mind. BTW I used a discount code CPFDISCOUNT from the candlepowerforums when I ordered for a 5% discount, HTH someone.

sure does

Ta woody

I'll post some pics when I get it built.

Hi Chucky,

I've just ordered a couple of bits from Cutter - the shipping was only about £7 and the total value was only about £25 so I figure this way it's unlikely to attract attention for import tax etc. (I don't mind paying the tax, it's the admin fees that I object to!)

I've ordered a triple XP-G R4, and a couple of optics. Have also ordered a 3W 670mA driver board from that chap on eBay. I assume that should work quite happily with the XP-Gs?

Yeah, the driver will work with any of the LED's

triple, quad XRE or XPG

Funny how the XPG's are cheaper than the older XRE's?

Tiboy, I recently sold these and the eBay listing has been removed but here's the griff and pix:-

This auction is for a purpose-built set of lights based on the ever-popular 6-volt Smart twin halogen lights but with heavy-duty upgrades for serious power and long burn-times.

The lights themselves have been upgraded to 2 x 10w bulbs for off-road use. As well as this, the standard switch (occasionally unreliable, at best) has been replaced with two mini-toggle switches that are held in a small casing. This is attached to the unit with a simple stick-on pad to come away in the event of a crash. As can be seen, it comes with two spare reflectors and a complete spare casing. It also comes with 2 x 2.4w, 1 x 6w and 3 x 10w spare halogen bulbs.

I'm also including a Smart Owl 6w / 10w unit as a backup.

The battery packs are the key to a very bright lighting system. These lights usually come with a 4500mAh 6v lead-acid battery but this comes a 10,000mAh (yes, ten-thousand mAh) Ni-MH D-cell battery pack at 7.2volts that weighs about 980gm .... and there are two of these, so you can have one on charge all the time, as the intelligent charger has Delta-V technology!!

They do fit into the Smart carrying cases, as shown.

Over-volting halogen bulbs by 20% is something that Lumicycle have been doing successfully for years. Although it reduces bulb life to about 12% (from about 5000 hours to 600 hours), it also increases brightness to 180% !! No big deal, as these bulbs cost about £2 to £3 each and 600 hours for me is 150 night rides of 4 hours, so I haven't blown one yet 🙂

Also, running 6v bulbs at 7.2v actually gives a marginally 'whiter' light than when running these at 6v.

Read more here:-

http://www.myra-simon.com/myra/bike/lights.html

As expected, the standard Smart charger is not much good for a battery of this size, so this comes with an intelligent 7.2v Delta-V fan-cooled charger that takes about 4-5 hours to boost each battery to full power and then automatically trickle-charges it. If the battery pack is charged in front of a domestic fan, this slightly reduces the charge time - these do get hot when charging but just in case, I'm also including a spare pair of battery housings, still in their wrappers, as shown.

The clever bit is that whilst the standard Smart units offer short burn times, this gives about 3 hours .... at full power!!

A simple formula:-

Standard Smart 10W+2.4W = 12.4w at 6v = 2.07amps which will flatten a 4.5Ah battery in 2 hrs 10 minutes.

These babies 10W+10W = 20w at 6v = 3.33amps which will flatten the 10Ah batteries in 3 hrs .... and that's at full power!! Have just one light on and of course, burn time doubles to 6 hours - in case you're wondering, the 6v relates to the bulb, not the battery. 🙂

So, the kit comes with:-

1 x 10w+10w unit (long beam spot + short beam diffused flood) - the small attachment shown is not included - the lights fit directly to your handlebars, as shown in the spare casing.

1 x spare casing - just for mounting if others crack, as I don't think the switch works!

2 x spare reflectors.

1 x spare Owl 10w + 6w backup unit.

6 x spare halogen bulbs, as above.

2 x 10,000mAh 7.2v (6 x 1.2v) RS battery packs.

2 x Smart bags to hold these.

2 x spare 6 x D-cell holders for the batteries.

Make no mistake!! These are F-A-R brighter and last F-A-R longer than the popular standard Smart twin halogen units and even give the expensive HID / LED brand-name lights a good run for their money with a more 'three-dimensional' light than the flat white beam of LED and HID units costing well into the £100's

[IMG] [/IMG]

[IMG] [/IMG]

[IMG] [/IMG]

Estimated at about 700-725 lumens on full whack.

Some data on XP-G at >1000mA . . . again assuming a decent heatsink you can run these things way over 1500mA . . . 1500mA turns into 450lumens . . . per LED . . . 1350 for a triple . . . will be experimenting with this as soon as I get some time and LEDS

[img] [/img]

taken from here :-

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3115908&postcount=354

Ref the XP-G cutter out of stock issue, they have R4 in stock, only max 5% less bright than the R5's . . .

Cheers Fergusd, Looks like its the XPG's then.

what driver gives 1.5amp?

Cool thread this 😀

No way on earth will a lumi halogen can handle 3 xpgs @ 1.5 amps and the gain is not worth the effort plus the extra battery draw .

if anyone is interested in have these drop me a mail

there is a leg bloke on the triple but it is still useable

[IMG] [/IMG]

Troutie, I can find a used for most all of those. Just can't find your email. Will try what I think it is.
Mike

If Mikey does not want em i'll have em.

Mikey, does this mean you don't want anything for this cutter order i'm going to put in?

BTW thanks for the link to the ebay driver Troutie. It works a treat

So is the thinking now that the XPG LEDs are the way forward & they should operate fine with the optics that Cutter sell even though they aren't 'designed' for XPGs?

it would appear that cutter now have both the XPG's and the optics for them.

so yes XPG's seem to be the way to go and you can now get specific XPG optics. Although only triples are in stock.

here

[url] http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut781 [/url]

pull down menu shows a XPG specific triple in stock

Hi, I'm very interested in this conversion but I confess all this electronic talk means nothing, I'm a mech. engineer, I like the touchy feely things.

If this conversion works (see trouts comments above about heat build up)is there anybody out there willing to increase their order quantities and purchase another set of bits for me? I'm interested in the 3 led set up, but wouldn't have a clue what I'm buying even with the links.

Would and external heat sink with veins help?

troutie is talking about the 1500ma drive in fergus's light.not the 670ma one of mine.

I can add a triple and optic onto the order if you like.

Mail me if you want in

ta

Dave

E mail in profile.

i am picking up a small resistor and switch that will allow you to drop the power to 50% or 100%, (another pointer form troutie, thanks again). This should alleviate alot of the concerns over heat build up.

Trout - why do say no way to the Lumi can? Is it the heat build up in the LEDs rather than the driver? As I understand it, if you use a bFlex driver they don't need heatsinking?

Chucky, would [url= http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut759 ]this PCB[/url] work for XPG's I can't find a specific board??

Am I right in thinking that the XPG's would work OK with the 670ma driver in the Lumi can with some kind of heatsink? I think I'll change my order to the XPG's if this is the case.

yes squeeky they will.

Let me know what you wnat to do

Mail me

I think I'll try the high/low mod via switched resistor too, if Chuck has success with it! I'll mostly be using the light for road commuting, which is a mixture of open country roads (plenty of airflow, lots of light = good) and London traffic (slow moving, don't need quite so much raw power). So it'd be really good to be able to switch down to lower power to reduce heat when in slow moving traffic / waiting at junctions. I actually mail-ordered a few bits from Maplin earlier, but misread the post above and ordered a 200 ohm resistor rather than 200k. Ah well, I can pop into a Maplin sometime before the Cutter stuff arrives I'm sure.

The XPGs shouldn't run any hotter than XPEs in a like for like setup (but will put out more light) so the heatsinking requirements should be the same.

Would it be possible to post a simple circuit diagram of how the resistor works to reduce the power. I guess it is a simple 3 way switch with the resistor taking load from the battery on one setting?

Poison spider

It is the leds that get hot and @1500 ma drive current there will be too much heat for the lumi can to disipate 3 XPGs will get pretty hot

one thing you want to watch for too is the xpgs add about 8 degrees beam angle to an xpe optic so your 6 degree optic which is really 12 degree will become 14 degree or 28 degree in real life so if you are wanting a spot beam stick with the XRE R2 or XPE R2