JaccoW

Crosspost from my C&V Batavus project thread.

As the saying in C&V land goes; if you feel like using a hammer, walk away and try again later.

The rear light on one of my bikes is a fender mounted B+M Secula Plus dynamo light and paired to a B+M IQ-X headlight.
Gambiet has a pretty good review of the light though I don't agree on his power draw comments.

Anyway, my rear dynamo standlight was not working all that well so while I was waiting for an RMA I decided to take the same light from another bike instead.
This is one of 5 or 6 bikes that has this rear light and this is the only one that has stopped working so I consider it an outlier.

It however needed some sawing and filing of the mounting bolt. Usually I use a dremel for this but I was doing it by hand this time.
Well, the plastic clip for the bolt snapped off and it slipped inside. In my impatience I decided to open up the light with a screwdriver to fix this... and well let's say this light is not meant to be openend.
Now this is totally my fault, but it does give me and others a chance to see what's inside.

And this is another example of Busch and Muller's excellent lens expertise.


The white bit in the middle is the single LED that provides all of the light. Behind the reflector is the lens which spreads out the light to all sides and provides 270° visibility.



There's a big, beefy capacitor on the rear that provides 5 minutes of standlight.


The square rear of the mounting bolt with the broken off clip. That's usually not a problem since the bolt is much longer but when clipped for flush mounting it can slip inside when you remove the light.


It's a shame the light is now broken but it might give me a good basis for something I was planning for quite a while;
a silver metal cover to slide over the black plastic to give the light a more classic look. Well, maybe.

I hope some people enjoyed this look.

Tourist in MSN

Thanks for posting, I will avoid attempting to disassemble mine.

If it was me, if I could put a new mounting bolt in the light, I would mix up some two part epoxy glue and glue it back together. Yeah the standlight is out, but if you have some reflectors on your bike you are likely safe enough without a standlight.

unterhausen

can you tell what those 2 little screws just above the emitter do?

JaccoW

Well, this is the fully functional one. So yeah, I'll probably try putting it back together again. Some superglue should work too.
It's the only reflector on the rear but that's less of an issue around here.


Good eye! Here is the high resolution image. I think it's probably the two legs of the capacitor, which were clipped off, covered in epoxy.

unterhausen

yeah, it's obvious from the hi res pic that it is the leads to the cap. I suggest you put a few dabs of hot glue to hold the cap on the board. Like B&M should do.

Doesn't look like you did much damage to the case, so that's good.

Thanks for posting this, it's very interesting.

steelbikeguy

always fun to see what secrets are inside! thanks for sharing with us!

as an electronics guy, I'm still curious about the details of the circuit. At a glance, it does seem like there are more parts than needed for a simple tail light and standlight. Are there features beyond these?

Any chance that you can share some detailed photos that show the part numbers of the electronics bits? Granted, a lot of markings are short codes that aren't easy to trace back to a part number, but it's still fun to try to reverse engineer it.

For comparison, I did a little work on a friend's tail light... a Herrman's H Track model. Not a bad light, but a much simpler circuit...





Steve in Peoria

unterhausen

he posted a hi-res picture up thread. The markings are non-existent or really faint on some parts. Hi-res is here: https://imgur.com/Sc1bdUM

Some of the circuitry is probably for the stand light. I'm curious about the 6 pin dip, is it a micro?

The German lights always seem to have too much circuitry. My Supernova headlight came unscrewed through no effort on my part, so I took it the rest of the way apart. It had a shocking amount of circuitry in it. I know it has a voltage doubler, but I just can't imagine they needed that much circuitry. I now have the light with no switches (the Pure), and it's so much smaller I think some of the circuitry is related to the switch in the other models.

well biked

Interesting info on the Supernova lights, thanks! I have a Supernova E3 Pro2 headlight paired with the Supernova tail light, and my understanding is that the capacitor that powers the tail light while in stand light mode is the capacitor in the headlight....Since you can't run a tail light through the Pure headlight, in adddition to the Pure not having an on/off switch, I wonder if the difference in size (and presumably the amount of circuitry) might be a combination of the lack of switch on the Pure and also a smaller capacitor for just running the Pure headlight in stand light mode?

I'll be installing a Pure headlight on a different bike soon, I'm just curious.

unterhausen

Been a while since I set it up, but I am using a supernova taillight with my Pure. And you can't use that taillight without going through a supernova headlight. The taillight is amazing. It's so amazing I have wondered if that's why the headlight is so pathetic

well biked

Sorry to derail the thread....You're right, the Pure headlight is compatible with a tail light (as long as it's a Supernova). I'm not sure where I got the impression that the E3 Pure3 headlight would not work with a tail light and also provide the stand light power for a tail light. I just received my E3 Pure3 headlight, and sure enough, it's wired for a tail light. I have been extremely pleased with the performance of my E3 Pro 2 headlight, but not all that impressed with the Supernova tail light, so I am running a battery powered tail light in addition to the Supernova dynamo tail light. On the bike I'm going to run the Pure headlight on, I figured I might as well not bother with a dynamo tail light and just run the headlight and use a battery powered tail light.

steelbikeguy

I did see that photo of the board, but was hoping for something with better resolution. Preferably, with the resolution to see whatever the parts markings are. Still, the odds of decoding the markings aren't good.

for instance, here's a shot of a B&M Eyc headlight board (could be better, though):




or a board from a Supernova Triple headlight....




Steve in Peoria

unterhausen

I have seen your picture of the supernova before. I wish I had taken a picture of mine, it was ridiculous in comparison.

Is the eyc board conformally coated, or is that fuzz just loose?

JaccoW

I can probably take a higher resolution shot some time next week. I even have a high quality macro lens but I can't find the charger for the camera itself anymore so that's a no go.

Tourist in MSN

For single cell 3.7v Li Ion camera batteries when I travel I usually use one of these.
https://www.amazon.com/Universal-Cha...dp/B001RGYZJS/

It has two small contacts that connect to the positive and negative parts of the battery, held on to the battery with a clamp like a clothespin.

But some of my DSLR cameras take a Li Ion battery that has two cells and twice the voltage, it does not work on those. I also found that when I charged one of my phone batteries with it, my phone somehow recognized that the battery was re-charged with a different charger and stopped accepting that battery, so I now only use that Lenmar charger for 3.7 v Li Ion camera batteries.

It is somewhat fragile, traveling, I put it in a small plastic bottle for storage when not in use.

steelbikeguy

well, I had to take pictures because I had to reverse engineer the whole thing ... or at least 95%. Quite a few of the semiconductors had been blown up.

The board is conformally coated. Overall, I was very impressed with the quality!

Steve in Peoria