Just received one of the Alley F-275 headlights from Kryptonite, and was surprised to find that it has a shaped beam pattern. The cutoff isn’t as extreme as the StVZO jawns, but it’s far from the circular patterns found on so many inexpensive lights. Build quality isn’t on par with more expensive lights, but it’s not bad for $35. We’ll see how battery life and the mounting hardware do over the winter.
I’m curious about the beam on the new Garmin light. If any good, I’d put one on my non-dyno bikes when I want to leave the “slow” bikes home.
Wow, good catch.
I know Axa as a lock company - maybe they’re tangentially related to Kryptonite through some corporate master?
Wouldn’t surprise me. I know that K’s parent company also owns Schlage.
and they rebrand the same light too http://www.kryptonitelock.com/content/kryt-us/en/products/product-information/current-key/003069.html
I’m hoping this gets a decent kraut light onto a bunch of normal LBS shelves
Did you miss where we just talked about that?
I think all the lights on the bike share in Seattle are Axa. I think most cheap OEM dyno lights are Axa brand.
[quote=johnasavoia]
The cygolite rear uses a simple battery charging chip with no thermal sensor input. The battery pack’s thermistor is left unconnected.
You shouldn’t charge a li ion battery when the battery is colder than 32F. Plating will develop of the electrodes and will permanently damage the battery. With battery enclosed in a simple plastic housing, I can imagine the battery needing a little time to warm up after coming home from a ride in East coast winters. There should be no problem if you wait a bit before plugging in the USB. This would apply to charging other batteries as well.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/archive/lithium_ion_safety_concerns
TLDR: after using in stupid cold weather, let the battery warm up to above 32F before charging to prevent damage
Does the chip have an embedded thermal sensor?
I know at work we use one chip that is programmable & allows use of the internal temp sensor or there is an external pin that allows you to connect a more accurate sensor in a specific location away from localized heating sources that can skew the measurement.
I don’t know much about battery charging chips since we don’t manufacture portable devices and the FAA is really strict with batteries.
Thank you for that!
[quote=Andrew_Squirrel]Does the chip have an embedded thermal sensor?
I know at work we use one chip that is programmable & allows use of the internal temp sensor or there is an external pin that allows you to connect a more accurate sensor in a specific location away from localized heating sources that can skew the measurement.
I don’t know much about battery charging chips since we don’t manufacture portable devices and the FAA is really strict with batteries.[/quote]
I highly doubt it. The board was partially potted so I couldn’t tell what they used exactly. But it’s a sot23-5 package. There are only a few charging chip in that package with built in thermal protection, but they are all linear regulators with wide input voltage range instead of the ones designed for USB supply voltage ranges. And the thermal protection is only for the charger chip, not battery.
The cygolite tail light was no more than an mcu, one transistor and the charger ic. It can hardly be more minimal. I’d be interested to see the innards of other blinkies in the similar price range.
I put ~50 miles on the Krypto/Axa light and it’s not too bad. The beam shape is decent, but there’s a distinct dead zone between the front tire and the main section. I have the light mounted to the front part of my Jones Loop bar, so that might be making it worse.
The mounting system is very flexible, which makes for a jumpy beam on even the smoothest of dirt roads. Cycling through the modes is a PITA, too, because it goes low>med>high>flash1>flash2>off. There’s no press-and-hold-the-button-for-2-seconds option to turn it off, and it always starts up in the low setting.
