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not resolvedI had dodgy power input to my lights for most of the ride in this morning, and I'm sure it's grunge getting in to the connectors at the hub and then either freezing or just blocking the connection by being there.
What are people using at the hub end? Some kind of conductive grease? A regular wash and scrape? Prayers and love?
Ta much.
Hmmnup. When I built the first one it had some sort of gunge acting like a grommet at the exit hole of the plug but I've never replenished it. I've replaced the plug's wires a couple of times on both bikes over the past few years (mainly to sort out connection problems further up, where things are connected with unprotected terminal blocks, or just as required when moving things around and needing longer wires) and there's not been much gunk inside the plug at all, considering how manky most of the forks can get and how little I wash any components. Whereabouts (clock-face-wise) do you generally have the plug bit protruding from the hub? Mine's usually a little forward of the fork, just enough to be able to get fingers around it without it being too exposed.
What are people using at the hub end?
plastic sleeves shrunk on with heat gun
@Darkerside - I use dielectric grease to pack around the contacts. This is to stop any shorting across the connectors. It's reasonably good as a standard grease too - I use it on the electrical contacts on our camper van. I don't know exactly how good it is as a protector again ingress of muck etc though.
I'm sure there are better suggestions however.
(edit - this is somewhat assuming you mean the shimano style push on connectors)
Mine are bare and I don't seem to have any problems. If you have some slack in the wire, you could trim new ends (maybe give the hub contacts a scrub with that green kitchen pad stuff that is also handy for copper plumbing?)
I think you were about right with the "Prayers and love" I have not had many issue with mine this year and was hoping to take them off soon. At least some of the additional no standard lighting, i can drop the chritmas tree now i think.
Standard SON spade connectors (oddly the Shimano plastic lego-brick seems more resistant), little forward of the fork as per wingping. Rubber shrink wrap completely covering the outer of each female plug.
I'll get the scourer out this evening and see what can be done. I've got battery backups at either end, so it's not a critical commute problem.
Ashamed to say I have never used anything; not even any tape or shrink-sleeves where the wires go into the connector. And I've never had any connectivity or corrosion issues in the last 3 or 4 years of use... More by luck than design I suppose!
Naked spades on the Schmidt hubs. The SA one has a block connector.
They just sort of work.
Schmidt Edelux lamps need shrink wrap on the tail light connector because the spade is recessed inside the lamp and it needs to be insulated from the body of the lamp to stop it shorting out.
I've got some Schmidt tail lights on two Bromptons. Interested to see how long they last before the caps break. Everything else has, sometimes in under a year.
I wonder if having the sleeves over the spades is actually causing problems.
Lights didn't kick in at all today (so in an hour of use), but worked perfectly all the way home last night (in nearly constant rain/sleet/snow). Overnight, all that's happened is the bike has sat untouched in a garage.
Perhaps the sleeves are trapping moisture around the connectors?
Potentially of interest (to anyone still following this thread, which is nosediving towards catatonic levels of tedium)
http://www.w8ji.com/dielectric_grease_vs_conductive_grease.htm
I've been very impressed with the Schmidt Edelux II.
Hmmm. Might try something on the rear light terminals, which are partially-exposed in a area of high gunge flux.
Stripped off the old hub connectors and found a good amount of white powder crammed in amongst the plug and cables. Cut back the wire, fitted new plugs, and put a dollop of grease on the end to hopefully keep future gunge out.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to have had any effect on the light. Definitely power coming out of the cable*, but the Luxos is showing no signs of using it. I'm going to see if it kicks into life on the way in to work tomorrow, but it's looking rather like a dead light...
*a bear of more brains would have tested power output before faffing around with the hub connectors. And indeed I attempted to do this. But instead measured across the two cables leading to the rear light... Which, oddly enough, don't transmit any power when the front wheel is spun. Doh!
Have you a rear light with spade connectors? Good for a quick check in case it is the hub.
Could see if I have something.
I can't claim to have read the thread, but me personally, I juts buy spare wires with every order from the Germain online bike store (as they cost pennies) and then strip back the wires every so oftern. You can't do much about water ingress and the resultant oxidisation, so just bite the bullet and strip back those wires everytime the light goes awol. As for connectors at the light end, same applies.
Top tip I learned the hard way, those SM50 voltage reduction crappy things for the tail light, just bin them, they break sonner or later and mean the light dims. I replaced the tail light twice before I realised it was the voltage reduction device.
I seem to recall reading somewhere about the Luxos sometimes being possessed by poltergeists in its cache battery, which ran flat, refused to charge or hold a charge and therefore refused to allow the lights to function properly or at all. Think one of the suggested solutions was to cycle about with the light switched off (and tail-light disconnected) to force charge it.
Changed spades both at the hub and the rear light, and had an incident-free ride in this morning. However, it hasn't rained for a few days, so I'm going to hold off declaring Glorious Success until the bike + head unit gets a good drenching.
Definitely off the opinion that the Luxos is slightly too clever for its own good.
@Darkerside - We now have a new Luxos at LB should it be faulty.
Amba have also supplied two of the new B+M IQ-X which are rated 100 Lux.
Irene and I have found the Luxos good on the tandem but the real test is running day in, day out.
B+M altered design several times to improve. As Kaputnik said the Luxos entered uncharted territory for B+M. (And of course we have had a forumer have an E-Werk go down on holiday - not supplied by us but recommended).
That said our Trans-Canada customer's Nazca tandem did the whole route including several taking into two halves for flight and still had their Luxos working.
Current demo Fuego has a Cyo and Line rear which is nice. All internally wired by Nazca. I like the idea of lights without a battery cache but touring cyclists have a 'need' for re-charging USB devices.
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