First Ride; Initial first impression;
I received the BT40S just before leaving for work yesterday. Today I had some good weather so I put the lamp on my bars and took off for a test run.
The BT40S I found to be an interesting lamp. I'll speak more about the setup later but first I want to talk about the ride. Starting temperature for the ride was about 70°F. The 40S is much smaller than I expected, slightly smaller than a typical Tri-clone lamp. Being smaller than expected I was a little worried about over heating. The lamp did get slightly warm to the touch on the higher modes but over all was not a problem. The lamp is set-up with 4-neutral XP-G2 Cree LEDs.
I was pleasantly surprised that the output and beam pattern were quite useable regardless of mode being used. The lamp ( with standard optic ) throws out a medium wide beam pattern that expands the farther out it goes. Because of this the throw suffers a little but not to the point of being unusable. In all I had a very pleasant ride and found I could actual ride almost anything in the lowest mode with no problems unless I really began to ride faster. With the standard optics the beam pattern shines everything very well close to the bike. Distance throw on low is maybe 40-50 feet depending on terrain. The lighter the trail surface the more the light would carry. Over all I was very please with the low mode, that too was unexpected ( Note* I did try the flood optic and yes it supplies a very massive flood beam. No doubt some may like that but sadly it absolutely kills the throw which IMO makes it unusable. )
Distance viewing with the BT40S is a little different than the other bike lamps I have. I have yet to measure the useable distance throw but judging from the initial trail ride and the test I did on a soccer field later after the ride, I would think about 150ft max ( on high ). While this is not near as far as my Gloworms or KD2 lamp can throw it is still enough for general bar use IMO. I also found the lamp worked very well with my other helmet lamp I was using ( SSX3-neutral ). With both lamps on low I could ride almost anything and had no problems seeing, even when riding fast.
The two higher modes of the BT40S ( the lamp has four modes ) were of course better for seeing things a little farther out. During the ride when I used my SSX3 ( on helmet ) I found the two beam patterns complemented each other very well. So much for the initial ride. I'll follow up with more ride reports as I go. As with all my reviews I comment on the things I notice as I go along.
Now a little more about about the BT40S lamp itself. In this section I'll talk about the good and the not so good. The lamp has a large back section where the mode buttons are. Yes, I said "buttons" with an s. Some people will like this type of switch but I've not yet made a decision on it. Press any button and the lamp comes on. The upper button moves the lamp to lower mode levels, the lower button move the modes to upper levels. For the most part I had no problem working the buttons but it does take getting used to.
I did have to do something about the translucent plastic piece that covers the rear buttons. When you turn the lamp on a very bright green voltage indicator illuminates the entire back of the lamp. This I found not to be to my liking. Before leaving for the ride I just cut out a round piece of black duct tape and placed it in the middle, leaving just a small illuminated edge which turned out to work very well for me. Without doing that I would of had WAY too much light shining in my face from the voltage indicators. After the quick fix all worked well and I had no problems seeing or working with the lamp while riding. I'm not completely sold on this two-part UP/Down switch but it worked fine and as such I'll not count it as a negative.
Well, every lamp has some flaws and the BT40S is no exception to the rule. The 40S comes with two sets of optics. The standard and the flood. When I took the retaining ring off the front of the light to try the flood optic I was not impressed with what I saw. First, the emitter board is only held down with a bit of thermal paste ( and the pressure from the quad-optic once installed ). Not a big problem as I see it but you do have to make sure to reposition the emitter board if it slides around while putting in the optics. I had no problem doing this and when finished I found that the lamp got warmer when on. No doubt the retaining ring needed to be tightened to make sure the board was getting better thermal contact.
Last but not least; the biggest negative issue ( IMO ) is that the design of the front of the lamp doesn't seem to take much thought into preventing water ingress.
There is no O-ring at all toward the front of the lamp. That being the case I can see two places that water might be able to enter. . First, around the retaining ring and secondly where the ring contacts the plastic one piece quad optic. A flat good size O-ring might help the water around the optic but if it's too thick the retaining ring won't be able to completely seal. Sadly , the only fix I can see that might work is to use some kind of light grease or sealant to prevent water ingress. That said I've tried doing that to other lamps before without much success. Going forward, I have to try because otherwise I'd never use any lamp on my bars that I wasn't sure could handle a good rain. Hopefully someone else will have some ideas or perhaps the grease idea will be sufficient. It would be a shame to dismiss this lamp for such a problem. Later, I'll test the lamp for water ingress once I do something to fix the problem.
I received the BT40S just before leaving for work yesterday. Today I had some good weather so I put the lamp on my bars and took off for a test run.
The BT40S I found to be an interesting lamp. I'll speak more about the setup later but first I want to talk about the ride. Starting temperature for the ride was about 70°F. The 40S is much smaller than I expected, slightly smaller than a typical Tri-clone lamp. Being smaller than expected I was a little worried about over heating. The lamp did get slightly warm to the touch on the higher modes but over all was not a problem. The lamp is set-up with 4-neutral XP-G2 Cree LEDs.
I was pleasantly surprised that the output and beam pattern were quite useable regardless of mode being used. The lamp ( with standard optic ) throws out a medium wide beam pattern that expands the farther out it goes. Because of this the throw suffers a little but not to the point of being unusable. In all I had a very pleasant ride and found I could actual ride almost anything in the lowest mode with no problems unless I really began to ride faster. With the standard optics the beam pattern shines everything very well close to the bike. Distance throw on low is maybe 40-50 feet depending on terrain. The lighter the trail surface the more the light would carry. Over all I was very please with the low mode, that too was unexpected ( Note* I did try the flood optic and yes it supplies a very massive flood beam. No doubt some may like that but sadly it absolutely kills the throw which IMO makes it unusable. )
Distance viewing with the BT40S is a little different than the other bike lamps I have. I have yet to measure the useable distance throw but judging from the initial trail ride and the test I did on a soccer field later after the ride, I would think about 150ft max ( on high ). While this is not near as far as my Gloworms or KD2 lamp can throw it is still enough for general bar use IMO. I also found the lamp worked very well with my other helmet lamp I was using ( SSX3-neutral ). With both lamps on low I could ride almost anything and had no problems seeing, even when riding fast.
The two higher modes of the BT40S ( the lamp has four modes ) were of course better for seeing things a little farther out. During the ride when I used my SSX3 ( on helmet ) I found the two beam patterns complemented each other very well. So much for the initial ride. I'll follow up with more ride reports as I go. As with all my reviews I comment on the things I notice as I go along.
Now a little more about about the BT40S lamp itself. In this section I'll talk about the good and the not so good. The lamp has a large back section where the mode buttons are. Yes, I said "buttons" with an s. Some people will like this type of switch but I've not yet made a decision on it. Press any button and the lamp comes on. The upper button moves the lamp to lower mode levels, the lower button move the modes to upper levels. For the most part I had no problem working the buttons but it does take getting used to.
I did have to do something about the translucent plastic piece that covers the rear buttons. When you turn the lamp on a very bright green voltage indicator illuminates the entire back of the lamp. This I found not to be to my liking. Before leaving for the ride I just cut out a round piece of black duct tape and placed it in the middle, leaving just a small illuminated edge which turned out to work very well for me. Without doing that I would of had WAY too much light shining in my face from the voltage indicators. After the quick fix all worked well and I had no problems seeing or working with the lamp while riding. I'm not completely sold on this two-part UP/Down switch but it worked fine and as such I'll not count it as a negative.
Well, every lamp has some flaws and the BT40S is no exception to the rule. The 40S comes with two sets of optics. The standard and the flood. When I took the retaining ring off the front of the light to try the flood optic I was not impressed with what I saw. First, the emitter board is only held down with a bit of thermal paste ( and the pressure from the quad-optic once installed ). Not a big problem as I see it but you do have to make sure to reposition the emitter board if it slides around while putting in the optics. I had no problem doing this and when finished I found that the lamp got warmer when on. No doubt the retaining ring needed to be tightened to make sure the board was getting better thermal contact.
Last but not least; the biggest negative issue ( IMO ) is that the design of the front of the lamp doesn't seem to take much thought into preventing water ingress.
There is no O-ring at all toward the front of the lamp. That being the case I can see two places that water might be able to enter. . First, around the retaining ring and secondly where the ring contacts the plastic one piece quad optic. A flat good size O-ring might help the water around the optic but if it's too thick the retaining ring won't be able to completely seal. Sadly , the only fix I can see that might work is to use some kind of light grease or sealant to prevent water ingress. That said I've tried doing that to other lamps before without much success. Going forward, I have to try because otherwise I'd never use any lamp on my bars that I wasn't sure could handle a good rain. Hopefully someone else will have some ideas or perhaps the grease idea will be sufficient. It would be a shame to dismiss this lamp for such a problem. Later, I'll test the lamp for water ingress once I do something to fix the problem.
