niterider hop ups

[FyrFytrRyn]

i scored a night rider light, 15w. as far as model goes, it just says "digital" on the light case and theres little "fuel" gauges on the back of them... i got 2 lights, one with remote on/off and one with it on the housing. anyhow, the battery doesnt last longer than an hour and it must be used ASAP after its un-plugged. i took the pack apart and determined there are 5- 1.2v 4500 MAH cells and the "smart chip" for the smart charger. id like to go get 5 new nimh cells and solder it up, but i wanted to get opinions from some of you first. id like 5 1.2v with an upped MAH. i found a 6v pack on batteryspace.com with 5000mah, thats like what, 30 more minutes? any super hop ups i dont know about? i figure i can get one with higher MAH and open it up to solder the smartchip up and use the stock charger with no worries. thoughts? thanks in advance.

the one i found
NiMH Battery Pack 6V 5000mAh (30wh 5xC ) with Wires for 6V Bike Lights - CH-552C01


updateage!
after i charged the batt a bit, the light with the button on the housing works. the guy who gave them to me said it never worked, now i can get a helmet adapter and have 2!!

[jfromlv]

after i charged the batt a bit, the light with the button on the housing works. the guy who gave them to me said it never worked, now i can get a helmet adapter and have 2!!

You're going to need two lights just for your extremely large cranium!

[SAR_boats]

If you could either make your own battery case or fit 2 rows of those batteries you found into the existing case and wired the 2 battery packs in Parallel (eg negative to negative, positive to positive) then that will keep the voltage the same but increase amp-hour rating. If you want to use the existing case then you wil have to go Li-Ion.
Li-Ion is lighter and you can fit more power into a smaller space but their life is shortened by not having a charge. If a Li-Ion battery is allowed to go dead then it's life is shortened. Ni-Mi batteries are the opposite, they are more sensitive to over charging but it is actually recommended to let them go dead before recharging the irst few times to condition them

[FyrFytrRyn]

niiiice one jason, but theres only room for one large headed person, literally. i wont DARE take your spot!

stock it has nimh, should i stick with those? where can i buy batteries? so i can wire 9 cells together @1.2 volts so long as they are wired in parallel? i dont want to have to buy a bat from niterider.

[SAR_boats]

Originally Posted by FyrFytrRyn

stock it has nimh, should i stick with those? where can i buy batteries? so i can wire 9 cells together @1.2 volts so long as they are wired in parallel? i dont want to have to buy a bat from niterider.

I don't know enough about the "smartcharger chip" that niterider uses to tell you whether or not you have to use it should you change over to Li-Ion. As far as I know most Li-Ion rechargable batteries already have a chip in them that regulates voltage and ampreage and also regulates charging. I think the smartcharger just protects the Ni-Mi batteries from overcharging, which is not an issue with Li-Ion because of their chip that is already there.

As for wiring 9 batteries together, you are partally correct. The battery pack that you found that is 6 volt and 4500 mah is already wired in series, meaning that the batteries are wired pos-neg, which increases voltage but not amp-hour.

If you were to try to run a parallel setup (actually series-parallel because the batteries are already wired in series) you would have to take the two battery pack leads (2 red, 2 black) and either solder them together or use wire crimps or what have you. Or just join them at the source.

In a parallel series you cannot, to my knowledge, have a diference in voltages. So adding 3 more cell to try and run in parallel wouldn't work because one would be 3 volt and the other would be 6 volt.

By the way the formula for figuring out watts, volts and amps is this:

volts X amps = watts. So if you have a 15w bulb that runs on 6 volts:

6v X amps = 15w

amps = 15w / 6v

amps = 2.5

So a 5000mah (or 5 Ah) battery would last, at best, 2 hours, not counting small losses in diodes, connections and resistors.

Hope this helped

[L8 APEKS]

That's what I noticed in trying to piece-together bike lights...the batteries are EXPENSIVE, even just the cells to build then yourself, and it's hard to find them with enough capacity for a decent burn time.

I'm trying to replicate the battery pack that came with my Supergo 30w system...it's higher capacity than most other brands batteries, and I only found the cells at one online store! It's a super compact pack, I think it uses 8 AA cells, but it's something like 6Ah!

[FyrFytrRyn]

well. i charged it overnight with the charger... it ran on 15w (max) for 1 hr 18 min and has been in 6w "walk mode" for 15 minutes with red light flashing. so i got basically an hour and 18 min out of it. decent? what do these guys run for normally? since i got 2 lamps im just going to buy another batt and have 2 lamps.

can some one help me by selecting a bottle and flat pack what will suit my needs on batteryspace.com? it would be most helpful, as i have no clue what to look for really. id like a new bottle pack and flat pack what works with the existing "smart" charger.. possible?

[Flat Broke]

When you say 15watt mode, was that both lamps simultaneously, or just one lamp? The basic trailrat 2.0 system uses a 10watt bulb and will run 2hrs and change. You might want to open the housings and check the wattage ratings on the bulbs. You can buy replacement bulbs in different wattages to ballance between output and run time.

Good luck,
Chris

[FyrFytrRyn]

ive got 2 lamps, but they are seperate. i recieved one for the bars COMPLETE and another lamp, so today i made a mount after work for the helmet and am working on finding a bottle type battery for the bar mount, and a flat pack to replace the pack that came with... each ONE of the SEPERATE lamps is 15w, they will be completely seperate...

ALSO:
will these work? it says 7.2 volt but aparently its okay to run these on 6v batteries. i will buy one of each of these and buy the necessary adapters to make it work. keep in mind the bottle pack comes with the charger that works with the seperate pack...should i buy these two? looks good to me.

https://www.batteryspace.com/index.a...OD&ProdID=2197
https://www.batteryspace.com/index.a...OD&ProdID=2537