reelight city: magnic competitor

[SA_SA_SA]

Won't a lot of dutch roadsters have steel rims?

Perhaps reelight should make clearer that aluminium rims are needed!!

[mjr]

Looking at the demonstration video, the bike used has disc brakes and is using the frame mounting, so that doesn't tell me much.

The Reelight Shop pic might show a different mount to the one in the box (also pictured) but that's a bit naughty if so.

I think I'm going to have to true the steel wheels again to test all this, but I should do that anyway.

[mjr]

Won't a lot of dutch roadsters have steel rims?

Yes, they do, as do a lot of vintage bikes, where this is an attractive light because it is battery-free, it doesn't bite the frame (as a bottle dynamo would probably need to stop it spinning away) and it didn't appear to require a wheel replacing (as a hub dynamo would).

After Brucey's last few messages, I've tried moving the lights along aluminium and steel bars. It does indeed work nicely on the aluminium bar. I can't find any combination of padding and positioning to make it light up with the steel bar.

Perhaps reelight should make clearer that aluminium rims are needed!!

Yes, they should if it does. Unless anyone can think of a way to make it work with steel. Fixing an aluminium ring to the spokes? I still wonder about trying my whipping magnets idea to see what happens.

[mjr]

I still wonder about trying my whipping magnets idea to see what happens.

Well it sort of works. Not really well enough. It's a definite flickering rather than a steady light. I may try to be more methodical about "every N spokes" spacing, but I'm not hopeful.

I also tried holding them by the alumnium rims on the folder. There seems to be something much more attractive to the magnet roughly at the "join" in the rim. Is that normal? Each time that point on the wheel spins past, it seems to jolt/stop the dynamo wheel and so the light, resulting in a definite flashing rather than the steady light shown in the promotional video.

On the Streetfinder, holding them vaguely near the aluminium rim as the wheel spins is sufficient to light them.

So, to summarise the story so far:

• They don't seem to work properly on the steel-rimmed roadster.
• They don't seem to work properly on the folding bike because of something in the rim
• They work fine on the alumnium rims on the bike that already has a dynamo fitted.
• But even on that bike, the supplied brackets are a bit rubbish (behind the brake blocks) and would be better if bent in two places to fit on the brake bosses - I'm reluctant to do that because I think I may want to resell these.
• I've asked the manufacturer about steel wheels on facebook without reply yet. I may ask the seller too.

They'd be OK for an aluminium-rimmed full-size bike if you don't mind bending metal or have disc brakes. About half the price of a tyre dynamo set, but I think they're a lot less powerful (a downside of all this fitting fun is I still don't have any pictures of the light they put out - maybe I'll faff about with the brackets behind the blocks on the Streetfinder tomorrow). For me, I think I'm back to searching for simple battery-free lighting for the folder and roadster.

[Brucey]

at the joint in the rim there can be;

a) a break as per a pinned joint, that can disrupt the eddy currents and/or
b) a steel pin that joins the extrusion ends, which effectively makes that part of the rim 'steel' rather than aluminium.

If the latter you may feel a magnet is attracted to that part of the rim somewhat.

So my guess is that these lights may work best on a welded aluminium rim, or one that is pinned using aluminium (rather than steel) pins.

All rather frustrating for you, but if you can diagnose if your problem rims have steel pins in, this might help others out at least.

cheers

[Malaconotus]

Here's another image of the lights mounted on a V-brake...


I'm perplexed. Surely they should mount on the V-brake boss? Why would they choose to mount them in such a flimsy way, and which causes them to move when braking?

[Malaconotus]

And here, equally well, or rather, equally badly, fitted to a mid-drop DP caliper by the brake block...

[Brucey]

it is all a bit baffling, I agree.

cheers

[mjr]

at the joint in the rim there can be;

a) a break as per a pinned joint, that can disrupt the eddy currents and/or
b) a steel pin that joins the extrusion ends, which effectively makes that part of the rim 'steel' rather than aluminium.

If the latter you may feel a magnet is attracted to that part of the rim somewhat.

Yes, a magnet is attracted to that part of the 406mm/20" rim somewhat, so I conclude it's got a steel pin in it. As you say, all rather frustrating. On larger wheels, this may be less of a disruption but none of the 622mm/700c rims here seem to have such a pin.

So I'm still thinking it's a slick set of "be seen" lights reduced to only OK by a poor set of fixings and being fussy about the rim type.

[Brucey]

well guess that all makes some kind of sense.

I reckon you could do Reelight (and other prospective customers) a big favour by feeding back to them what you have found about their product, i.e. that it only works with a few rims and that their mounting scheme is far from perfect.

cheers