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- Feb 26, 2010
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My quest to understand how the dimming function works on the Solstice Prime lights led me to talk with a fellow at Vision X, by the name of Mike. We must have talked for a good 15 minutes about how things worked.
First of all, Mike didn't know anything about how the dimming function worked, but he did mention that they are coming out with a high/low beam dimmer specifically for motorcycles and it should be out in a month or so. I figure that's good enough for me, I'll wait it out.
As far as the "Prime Drive" goes, I learned a bunch. There have been a lot of questions about the "70% more light" claim over the original Solstice Solo lights. Here are my notes:
The lumen rating that you see for lights is a manufacturer rating for the LED itself, not a measure of what the light the LED has been incorporated into is putting out. This was interesting, because what this means is that all the folks out there who say, "I put a set of LED spots on my bike, they are each rated at 800 lumens, so I now have an additional 1600 lumens of light!" are going to be quite disappointed. The LED lumen rating is a theoretical maximum, and how much light is put out actually depends on how hard you DRIVE the LED. In the case of the original Solstice Solo lights, they are a 900lumen LED, that is driven at around 80%, so in reality the output would be 900*0.8 = 720 lumens. The main reason why the LEDs are not driven to the theoretical maximum is because of heat. Drive them too hard and they will fail prematurely, so the manufacturers were striking a balance between output and longevity, and based on the technology the original Solos use that number is about 80%.
The "patent pending prime drive" on the new Solstice Solo Primes is actually a new thermal management system that allows them to drive the LED to 90% instead of 80%. So even though the new LED in the prime units is rated at 860 lumens, you actually are getting 860 * 0.9 = 774 lumens of output. That's about 3.3% greater lumen output, which according to Mike "means a lot."
Wait there's more. ;D
The other major difference between the Solos ("Solos") and the Solo Primes ("Primes") is optical efficiency. In the Solos, the transmitter was configured at a 25 degree angle, in the Primes it is 20 degrees. There is also an efficiency factor involved in this though. The Solos were 25 degree spread, with an ~80% efficiency. What that means is that only 80% of the light being produced was focused in the 25 degree beam. The rest was scattered outside of that 25 degrees (up, down, left, right). The new Primes have a 20 degree spread, with a 93% efficiency, so you're getting much more light focused within the 20 degree spread. There will be less ambient light with the Primes vs the Solos.
I don't know if other forms of lighting such as Halogen and HID also are reporting theoretical maximums vs actual in-use maximums or not. It was very enlightening to learn that lumens is a rather deceiving measure of output, at least for LEDs. The more standard measure would be "lux", which I've seen used elsewhere but I don't know the exact definition, but it is an actual measure of light at a particular distance, which is certainly more objective. As it is, I wouldn't go by the lumen ratings of LED lights to determine actual output, because there are too many other factors involved.
There you go guys, I think it all makes sense now. :-\
First of all, Mike didn't know anything about how the dimming function worked, but he did mention that they are coming out with a high/low beam dimmer specifically for motorcycles and it should be out in a month or so. I figure that's good enough for me, I'll wait it out.
As far as the "Prime Drive" goes, I learned a bunch. There have been a lot of questions about the "70% more light" claim over the original Solstice Solo lights. Here are my notes:
The lumen rating that you see for lights is a manufacturer rating for the LED itself, not a measure of what the light the LED has been incorporated into is putting out. This was interesting, because what this means is that all the folks out there who say, "I put a set of LED spots on my bike, they are each rated at 800 lumens, so I now have an additional 1600 lumens of light!" are going to be quite disappointed. The LED lumen rating is a theoretical maximum, and how much light is put out actually depends on how hard you DRIVE the LED. In the case of the original Solstice Solo lights, they are a 900lumen LED, that is driven at around 80%, so in reality the output would be 900*0.8 = 720 lumens. The main reason why the LEDs are not driven to the theoretical maximum is because of heat. Drive them too hard and they will fail prematurely, so the manufacturers were striking a balance between output and longevity, and based on the technology the original Solos use that number is about 80%.
The "patent pending prime drive" on the new Solstice Solo Primes is actually a new thermal management system that allows them to drive the LED to 90% instead of 80%. So even though the new LED in the prime units is rated at 860 lumens, you actually are getting 860 * 0.9 = 774 lumens of output. That's about 3.3% greater lumen output, which according to Mike "means a lot."
Wait there's more. ;D
The other major difference between the Solos ("Solos") and the Solo Primes ("Primes") is optical efficiency. In the Solos, the transmitter was configured at a 25 degree angle, in the Primes it is 20 degrees. There is also an efficiency factor involved in this though. The Solos were 25 degree spread, with an ~80% efficiency. What that means is that only 80% of the light being produced was focused in the 25 degree beam. The rest was scattered outside of that 25 degrees (up, down, left, right). The new Primes have a 20 degree spread, with a 93% efficiency, so you're getting much more light focused within the 20 degree spread. There will be less ambient light with the Primes vs the Solos.
I don't know if other forms of lighting such as Halogen and HID also are reporting theoretical maximums vs actual in-use maximums or not. It was very enlightening to learn that lumens is a rather deceiving measure of output, at least for LEDs. The more standard measure would be "lux", which I've seen used elsewhere but I don't know the exact definition, but it is an actual measure of light at a particular distance, which is certainly more objective. As it is, I wouldn't go by the lumen ratings of LED lights to determine actual output, because there are too many other factors involved.
There you go guys, I think it all makes sense now. :-\
