Planet Bike visits Seattle
May 11, 2008 · 09:37 AM · permalink
Bob Downs, president of Planet Bike, was in town a little while ago, and he and his group stopped into the bike shop. One of the things on their mind was an item with which I’ve recently become enamored: generator lights. It seems that Planet Bike will be bringing their expertise with LEDs to the generator light market.
As much as battery technology has improved, I just have never trusted any battery system more complex than a set of rechargeable AAs. Honestly, I think this goes back to my humiliation in university courses in circuits. All those diagrams just seemed like Sanskrit to me. Give me Physics 1 or Statics…stuff I can see. I intuitively feel better about relying on a small powerplant built into my hub than the alchemy of li-ion or metal-hydroxide battery packs.
Give me a power supply that is always ready when I ride. Something like the Shimano Alfine dyno-hub, or if you are flush with money you can get the Benz of generator hubs, the Schmidt. Planet Bike is adapting their excellent 1W Blaze LED headlight to the generator application, bringing the high performance and dead-on dependability of modern LED technology to a market that largely still relies on halogen-type systems.
It seems like the light itself is almost ready to go, but Downs’ group was mulling over mounting options. Visually, it’s a 1W Blaze with a wire exiting the rear, and so far the graphics on the casing are the same as the regular version. Look for the generator-powered Blaze next season.
Does it have a standlight while stopped?
Are they just running 500mA from the hub to the LED?
What kind of heatsinking are they using?
Yes, it will have a standlight when stopped in a flashing and steady mode. This light will blow your mind when you use it for the first time.
Typical, I’ve just completed setting up four of my commuters with LED dynamos. I used Planet Bike’s Dynamo headlights and Mag-Lite LED modules—with a little bit of filing. And a rectifier board of course.
But it was still worth the elbow grease, the LED/Dyno setup changes your world. And I got two lights per bike for 60 bucks, so pretty good.
QPB offers a great price on their Salsa/Shimano Dyno Front wheel, too.
I too prefer simple, off-the-shelf rechargeable batteries. Unfortunately they have lower voltages, so I get less light out. It would be nice to buy a light designed for rechargeables - does anybody know of such?
(And would they blow up if you inserted standard batteries as an emergency measure? If I couldn’t prevent that then I would be hesitant to sell such a device.)
We welcome your comments, however all comments are moderated. Offensive or off-topic comments will be deleted and not displayed. Also, please note that comments are owned by the commenter and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bike Hugger or it's affiliates.