Schmidt Edelux Water Issues

About a year ago, I put a notice on the blog about the SuperNova LED light being somewhat less than waterproof. At least in that regard, the Edelux by Schmidt seemed the better choice.

Guess what? The Edelux lights apparently suffer from the same flaw. I've had three friends with those lights report water problems. Here's what one said:

"The housing allowed water to enter shorting out the light. It was sent back to Germany and repaired although I haven't tried it out since."

I was riding with him when the light failed. We'd been through about five hours of hell and high water when his world went black. Luckily, he had a helmet light as a back-up.

Another friend who just finished a rainy LEL reports:

"There was water in the Edelux splashing around at the end. It dried out once I returned but there was some h20 residue.... The water did not affect performance at all (yet)."

That light is also being sent back to Germany for repairs.

Look, Schmidt folks, we're spending $200-plus on these lights. Where is the reliability we've come to expect from your products?

With these kinds of problems, is it any wonder that some are forgoing the Schmidt set-up in favor of cheaper battery powered lights, which are now close in brightness, half the weight and with much less financial sting.

During LEL I saw the Ixon IQ in action. It was not as bright as the Edelux, but it wasn't too far off, either, and it can run on AA batteries. No expensive Schmidt hub required.

After-Sundown Companions

"Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight
but, while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night."

—H.W. Longfellow

Night rides are a great escape from summer's heat and are always thrilling—especially all-night brevets, where reaching the dawn serves as reward for one's nocturnal toils. On brevets, many of us find by nightfall that our group has become stretched out so sparsely along the route that the ensuing nights often grow lonesome. Those quiet backroads, deep in the Carolina woodlands, can however be truly excellent company along with the moon, wind, trees and nocturnal wildlife. Deer, with their poor sense of roadway etiquette, have proven problematic to a few unlucky randonneurs (Hi Chet! Hello Cindy!) and even much smaller critters can challenge one's bike handling skills. Thankfully the bears seem to be more elusive, but I'll wager that the tandem could take down a small one if they earnestly put their minds to it, and replace those E-6s with infrared. Keep those hunting licenses up to date!

Three night creatures offering far more pleasant company come to mind. All three of them are night birds with distinctive songs that call out their own names loudly, clearly and persistently, allowing us to connect with them while keeping our eyes on the road. They are: the bob-white at dusk and the whip-poor-will and chuck-will's-widow on through the night. If we are enjoying a full moon, mocking birds may trill the night long too. Though they do not monotonously repeat their own names, you should be familiar with diagnostic triple repeating of extensive repertoire of mimicked songs.

J. J. Audubon says of the Chuck-Will's-Widow (The 'Widow and Whip' are both "Nighjars", aka "Goatsuckers"):

"The sounds of the Goatsucker, at all events, forbode a peaceful and calm night, and I have more than once thought, are conducive to lull the listener to repose…Their notes are seldom heard in cloudy weather, and never when it rains."

I'm told that the whip-poor-will always hatches ten days before the moon is full—how's that for proof of a creature's splendid connection to the night world?

Doubtless, many of you have learned to identify these birdsongs around the time you learned to form sentences, but others riding amongst us were raised in cities, or even places outside the eastern United States, and it occurs to me that they just may be missing out on the comfortable recognition of these guardian angels of night travelers, these unseen forest dwellers who seem to follow the weary traveler mile after mile and hour after hour with audible encouragement to keep our minds clear.

Despair not, you of such pitifully deprived upbringing, findsounds.com is here to enlighten you. I've grabbed three .wav files, converted to .mp3 and saved the bobwhite here, the whippoorwill here and chuck-will's-widow here that I might serve to further facilitate your education and night-cycling enjoyment. You will never ride alone in the woods again, at least not this side of the Mississippi.

Should you ever chance to pedal on down to the deep south, Louisiana and Mississippi are possessed of the loudest nocturnal insect choruses. The neighborhoods of insects create auditory waves that run back and forth through the wood lots. I have had no entomologist confirm it, but I’d bet these choruses are a prelude to reproduction. I will leave that to the insects, but in two weeks I will be investigating whether the cacophony of insect calling and the silent phosphorescent calls of lightning bugs, so prominent in my memory of Louisiana and Mississippi, also extend to Arkansas.

Now, dontcha wanna go for a ride tonight?

Supernova E3 Bike Light : Important Update

If you've purchased a Supernova E3 light, or are just about to buy one, a word of caution: the light is NOT waterproof if used upside down.

At least one randonneur who used the light upside down on a rainy brevet reported that it leaked and sent a note to the manufacturer. (He won't be the only one who installs the light upside down. While it's not obvious from the picture above, mine also mounts that way on the front rack.)

Gregor Arndt, who is the COO of product management for Supernova, confirmed in an email that a design flaw exists.

Here's what Gregor said:

I've talked to our designer and he admits the light was not intended to be installed upside down and still be watertight! The vibrations of the cable will lead the water into the housing. I am sorry that we have not mentioned this before, but we've had no previous experience with inverted installations.

As a quick solution, we recommend putting some black silicon around the cables where they exit the rubber seal. We will work on a permanent solution, of course.

In case of lamps that already have water in the housing, we recommend opening the front cap in a warm, dry environment, letting all the moisture evaporate. The rear of the lens may have to be cleaned with a moist glasses cleaning cloth.

If there has been any serious damage (which shouldn't happen at all, since all the electronics is coated), we will send a replacement.

In a note to the Trailer Park, Gregor thanked us for alerting E3 owners to the problem.

I just want to emphasize again, that it should be OK if you use some silicone sealant and that the electronics inside won't be damaged by water.

We will react to the issue as quickly as possible.

Gregor said he'd have an update in the next three or four weeks.

Supernova E3: a glowing review

Talk about your glowing endorsement. When a pedestrian stops you with – “Hey! What kind of light is that?”– you know it's good.

Yes, I’m talking about the new Supernova E3.

I finally wired my light this evening, impatiently checked the sky. Still too much sun. Like the bard said, Out, damn'd spot! out, I say.

Oh, yeah, Spot. I took the dog for a walk, counted the minutes, waited for the Dark Monster to get up and pull the shades down. Finally. I rolled the Coho from the basement and headed out for a test run.

First planned stop: the neighborhood Quik Mart for a feels-like-a-winner! lottery ticket. I had the light on as I headed down Glenwood, a big street that slices through the heart of Raleigh like a cardiologist with a tee time. Two of the light-sensitive street lights blinked off as I neared them. Was the Supernova doing that? Why yes, I think it was.

The Quik Mart is a half mile from the house. By the time I reached it, the E3 standlight was already charged. Here’s a shot of it.


And while I’m taking shots, here’s one of the dual tail lights. Those rear light brackets on the Coho are a fantastic feature.



Winning ticket in hand, I rolled off to a little neighborhood I like to call the Heart of Darkness.

First impressions: the Supernova throws a hot white light. It has a more diffuse pattern than the trapezoidal beam of the E3. The hottest part of the beam appears to be narrower and longer than the E6 pattern.

Also, the Supernova is clearly brighter than the E6. How can I say that without a side-by-side comparison? Easy. The E6’s yellow light was typically overwhelmed by city street lights. The E3’s beam remained visible.

I tried to get a couple shots of the light’s beam while rolling down a slight hill. Let me say up front that the camera does not do the light justice -- unless justice is six feet of rope and a hanging tree. I’ve posted the video anyway because you do get a sense of the light’s reach. Watch the video and you’ll see the reflective striping light up on a road barricade. That was a couple hundred yards away when I first started down the hill.



Here’s another short video that shows the E3 can hold its own against a streetlight.



Now back to the opening story. I was heading up a side street when a man walking his dogs saw me coming. He yelled out: “Hey, what kind of light is that.” I turned around, stopped and showed him, telling him in general terms it was a generator hub. “Yeah,” he said, “but what kind is it? I’ve been looking for one. That thing is really bright.”

Yes indeed. Like a Supernova.

Update: Blair Witch Project 3 just called. They want to buy my extra footage.

Update 2: The Lottery just called. The limo's on its way.