 JohnClimber - Simonm has already beaten you to it in his previous post. Interesting read though. On the subject of import duty I've been recently informed by Dyl that:- "They raised the Duty Limit to something like £120 nearly 1 year back, so your fine. Free postage, so anything over £100 just put onto a seperate order!! dyl" Good ol' Dyl. Nice to see he's still about.
|
 |
 That's import duty, you will still be liable for VAT. for which I think 15 quid is the limit. That's why play.com and the other channel isles based internet retailers send every item in an order out in separate packages, rather than one package, that way each individual item is exempt from VAT.
|
|
Import duty is 4.5% if you have to pay it. The big import cost for anything is VAT at 15% The catching fire thing I don't think it caught fire, its more a case of a melt down, the component adjacent to the damaged case is a high power wire wound resistor (if I'm not mistaken). My guess is that its used in the circuitry as a shunt for the charge current when the battery approaches full charge, as Lithium batteries like to be charged at about 0.8 amps to start until cell voltage approaches 4.1, volts then drop quite rapidly as the battery charges to a final value of 0.1 amps and then switch off. Unless there was a fault with that particular charger then all of them are likely to overheat.
|
|
 buy one of these and have a charger that will charge anything. charger
|
|
 Just had a deek at one of these lights. Nice. Looks a similar output to my P7 torch i have been using for 12mths. Seems to use four of the 8650 cells (Not sure if thats their correct label) and then hard wired to the light. Reminds me of the cell holder the guy on STW was trying to desing with dummy cell to convert the torch. It dies a death. All in all i would like to know of any other £50 light which can touch this one for VFM. At this price its a disposable item and lets you keep up with the ever improving light outputs that will undoubtably come next year. On the charging front. I have been charging my 2 batteries for my P7 for the last 12mths without issue. I leave them overnight even though they only really need a couple of hours. Should i be bothered???
|
|
What 2 batteries are they ?
|
|
8650s tend to be ok, its lithium polymers that are really a pain.
|
|
Has anyone tried the head-mounted version of the light? http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.29489 It's marginally cheaper and comes with a head strap that looks like it can be converted to a helmet mount. I've been searching to see if it's essentially the same light that gives the same light output/beam pattern but there's little info to be found and DX's description doesn't seem to add up. I've read one report that claims it's brighter and another that the battery case is different but that's all I've found so far. Anyone here got one?
|
|
 Just had a deek at one of these lights. Nice. Looks a similar output to my P7 torch i have been using for 12mths. Seems to use four of the 8650 cells (Not sure if thats their correct label) and then hard wired to the light. Reminds me of the cell holder the guy on STW was trying to desing with dummy cell to convert the torch. It dies a death. All in all i would like to know of any other £50 light which can touch this one for VFM. At this price its a disposable item and lets you keep up with the ever improving light outputs that will undoubtably come next year. On the charging front. I have been charging my 2 batteries for my P7 for the last 12mths without issue. I leave them overnight even though they only really need a couple of hours. Should i be bothered???
Kiss of death i know i have this charger and protected CR123 batts and it doesn't even get warm http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1236 i ordered one of these 900 lumin units last week (still waiting on supplier)  but have my old Solstice HID LI Ion charger (battery packs are the same by all accounts (cheers Dylan for your input) so i am hightly tempted to convert that to work with my new light when it turns up but i was planning to put the US charger into a IP 65 plastic box and solder a UK 13 A plug to it and charge it outside (got a waterproof outdoor socket)
|
| Edited: 02/11/09 21:10 |
Has anyone tried the head-mounted version of the light? http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.29489 Anyone here got one?
I guess not then! A word of warning re dx/sku.25149 (and I guess dx/sku.29489): The battery pack could be better protected against the elements. In fact mine got a soaking last week and it wouldn't work until I dried it out. So be careful where you mount the pack on your bike.
|
|
I used my light 3 times great light but....on the 3rd ride the light went dead after 45 minutes. It states that it has a 180 min. burn time on high. I charged it several times and ran a test and still only get about 40 minutes burn time! Not happy!
|
|
I used my light 3 times great light but....on the 3rd ride the light went dead after 45 minutes. It states that it has a 180 min. burn time on high. I charged it several times and ran a test and still only get about 40 minutes burn time! Not happy! i bet the cells are cheap and nasty you can build a new pack cheaply (not got mine yet) but the cells are 18650 http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.19770 $7 a pair for protected cells (prevents over charge and over discharge)
|
|
