Just checking things out and have noticed the headlamp on the vectrix is 35 watts, surely it would have been better to change this power hungry bulb for an LED headlamp which only uses around half the wattage of a standard lamp and would provide better lighting.
Is there any reason why the headlamp bulb couldn’t be changed for an LED headlamp? Does anyone know?
Wouldn’t this give the bike better range and also improve on the batteries performance over all?
Hi,
LED lamps with enough power are dangerous for your eyes. No fake it has somethging to to with the waveform of the emited light but it´s
hard to describe for me in english. LED-light is similar to laser-light which is dangerous for eyes even at very low wattages.
The other problem might be, that LED with enough power are too expensive yet and need quite much energy.
One posibility would be a Xenon arc lamp, as available for bikes and cars, and we use such lamps in cinema-projectors (but up to 7000W!).
These lamps are long lasting, and lightemitting vs. You use still 35 watt but you get mor light for it.
We descussed this topic in an old thread, because the headlight of the Vectrix can be switched off with a highbeam-handbreak combination.
Someone calculated the rangebenefits but on normal speed they are only some meters (35 watt power consumption of the headlight vs. 6500
watt powerconsumtion of the motor).
Greetings Mike
The range does not improve much if you turn the headlight off.
There is an LED lamp that stays on even if the headlight is turned off.
I guess this has something to do with the intention to sell the same bike in many different markets. Unless you use a very standard set of lights, the compliancing could turn into a nightmare in some places.
A HID light gives much better results but it's not entirely clear if it could damage the stock electronics.
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
yep 35W is nothing when you have a motor eating 200x that much.
35W is actually below what my cycle analyst can measure accurately.
when the bike is on my cycle analyst reads between 0.0A and 0.2A (the actual current is around 0.3A)
when riding:
70kmh needs ~30A (50km nimh, 120km on lifepo4 60Ah)
80kmh needs ~40A (40km nimh, 100km on lifepo4)
90kmh needs ~55A (32km nimh, 81km on lifepo4)
100kmh needs ~75A (26km nimh, 66km on lifepo4)
110kmh needs ~95A (23km nimh, 57km on lifepo4)
a HID would be interesting from a more light point of view, though I can't remember a time when it wasn't enough (or switching to high beams didn't sort it out).
Matt
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km
Antiscab, I'm planning to install a cycle analist on my V. Can you post us some pictures of the installation process? Many thanks in advance!
No Worries,
Ill take a couple when I remount the charger and all the panels are off again.
When you do order it, make sure you get a 75mV 100A shunt.
that will gives you the greatest accuracy while still being able to show the full range of currents drawn.
the cycle analyst accepts up to 200mV input from the shunt.
make sure you get the 200V model.
It doesn't matter if its the High current version or not, the software is the same.
Matt
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km