Ebike compatible front light recommendations?

[83b]

I really like my Cycle Lumenator and get lots of compliments on its brightness (1,000 lumens!). It has an internal DC-DC converter and so can be hooked directly into almost any ebike battery.

It’s really cool to have your lights all just come on when you turn the system’s key. I don’t know what kind of DC output jack BionX uses, but it wouldn’t be hard to rewire the light’s cord if the included plug (a 5.5×2.1mm DC power jack) isn’t right.

If you go for it, I do recommend mounting it low so as not to blind trail users.

[cyclingfool]

A quick Google search suggests that the DC output is the same 3W that come from a dynohub, in which case I’d highly recommend the Busch & Muller Lumotec IQ Cyo (N) Senso Plus I used to have. It’s currently available for $70 from Peter White. Senso is nice — lets the light run as a daytime running light with varying brightness depending on ambient light conditions. Go into a tunnel, it goes to full power, back into the sun it steps back a bit to just make you more visible. All the B&M lights have a good vertical cutoff, too, that avoids blinding oncoming traffic (i.e., it conforms w/ German law)

I’d say you can’t go wrong with any of the Busch and Muller lights. The whole line is discussed here:

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/b&m-hl.asp

Disclaimer: I could be way off base about compatibility w/ an ebike.

[Starduster]

@cyclingfool 84047 wrote:

A quick Google search suggests that the DC output is the same 3W that come from a dynohub, in which case I’d highly recommend the Busch & Muller Lumotec IQ Cyo (N) Senso Plus I used to have. It’s currently available for $70 from Peter White. Senso is nice — lets the light run as a daytime running light with varying brightness depending on ambient light conditions. Go into a tunnel, it goes to full power, back into the sun it steps back a bit to just make you more visible. All the B&M lights have a good vertical cutoff, too, that avoids blinding oncoming traffic (i.e., it conforms w/ German law)

I’d say you can’t go wrong with any of the Busch and Muller lights. The whole line is discussed here:

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/b&m-hl.asp

Disclaimer: I could be way off base about compatibility w/ an ebike.

Off base? Nope. Peter White carries Euro lights from B+M, Schmidt, and Supernova, who by now all have lights designed to run off an E-Bike’s electrical system.

[runbike]

I have a Supernova E3 ebike light on my stromer. Connects directly to the aux power port and super bright!

[Aushiker]

I was looking for folks experiences with a Busch & Muller LUMOTEC IQ Cyo e-bike light and came across this thread which I believe has some misleading information in it.

Dynamos, bicycle hub dynamos are not really dynamos, they are magnetos, that is they produced AC power and hence dynamo lights are designed for AC power. The power from e-bike batteries is in the form of DC power which is different. Now I understand that a bicycle lights designed for dynamos may work with DC power but it is reasonable to expect the LED to burn out in due course due to the nature of DC power (sorry lost the link on this).

Busch & Mueller and Supernova and Philips all have e-bike specific models which work off DC power, not the AC power that comes from a dynamo. I am not aware of Schmidts making e-bike lights and wouldn’t expect them to, given they are a dynamo manufacturer. Also care should be taken in particular with the Busch and Muller models as they use the same product names for their dynamo powered lights as they do for their e-bike (DC) powered lights. The item number is the critical identifier.

E-bike owners should really be using lights designed to operate on DC power either at higher voltages or via a DC-DC converter, not use AC powered lights … it would not be ideal to have the LED go a ride in my view.

All the above notwithstanding, if anyone has any experience with the latest Busch & Mueller LUMOTEC IQ Cyo T (Item No. 175Q75/6TSNE-07) I would love to hear your experiences.

Regards
Andrew

[cyclingfool]

@Aushiker 86921 wrote:

I was looking for folks experiences with a Busch & Muller LUMOTEC IQ Cyo e-bike light and came across this thread which I believe has some misleading information in it.

Thanks for your post. I’ve actually come across your blog in my own searches for things over the years.

The AC vs/ DC distinction would be very important. Thanks for pointing it out. FWIW, my reply earlier in the thread came with a big, fat disclaimer:

@cyclingfool 84047 wrote:

Disclaimer: I could be way off base about compatibility w/ an ebike.

which was followed up by a post pointing out that there are e-bike specific lights from a lot of the manufacturers now.

@Starduster 84281 wrote:

Off base? Nope. Peter White carries Euro lights from B+M, Schmidt, and Supernova, who by now all have lights designed to run off an E-Bike’s electrical system.

So, I’m not sure what information was exactly misleading, but your post puts a nice point on the fact that you can’t just run dynamo (i.e., magneto) lights on an e-bike.

Cheers!

[Author]

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