YINDING YD 2xU2 in wallbuys

(Reviewed by Mojo Jojo, November 20, 2013)

I own this bicycle light for a few weeks now and in this time I made some tests and comparison to other chinese budget bike lights.

The Yinding bike light set is packed in a nice »gift box«. You get a main light unit, 8.4V battery pack, 2 mounting O-rings, US plug charger and a headband holder.

First thing you notice is the weight of the main light unit. It is extremely light and small. It weights 63 grams with plastic mount and rubber O-ring. Dimensions are 23x44x34mm. It uses two high power USA Cree XML U2 bin LEDs and TIR plastic lenses instead of reflectors and that is a big step forward for chinese lights.

It has a clasic plastic holder for handlebar, but uses a soft rubber pad instead of cheap foamy pads that you get with many other budget lights. This rubber pad makes better conection to a handlebar or headband so it doesnt rotate too freely. The power cable comes out at the side and doesnt interfear with plastic mount. The body mounting area is also flat and has one threaded hole. That is very nice feature because you can make your own custom mount very easily. The power cable has clasic »Magicshine« standard waterproof connector. That is very handy if you want to mix it with other Magicshine alike lights and batteries. Mounting rubber o-rings are

very poor and can tear easily. You should buy silicone ones that cost around $2.

I bought it from wallbuys, here is the link: http://wallbuys.com/Product/Yinding-2-x-CREE-XM-L-U2-1800LM-4-Mode-White-LED-Bike-LightHeadlamp-Black-4x18650--10809

And now the real deal. This light is extremely well designed and manufactured. The quality can match Magicshine and even some other branded lights. There are seals all over the place, even the plastic mount has two of them. This light has no problems with water, even submerged. The leds are soldered (and connected in series) to aluminum backplate and screwed in on the backwall. Thermal paste had been used. In the middle of the aluminum body is a solid wall that takes the heat from hot LEDs and transfer it to the body surface and in to the air. That is the most eficient pasive

way to cool down all the heat generated by the LEDs. That is very important and lots of cheap chinese lights are very poorly designed in that matter. The soldering is also very good, no bad connections, no fear for short circuits. The driver is not the most advanced, but it does the job and have no issues.

The light has 3 modes: off/low/mid/high/off.. and hidden fast strobe mode...press and hold for 3 sec. Unfortunately has no memory mode. This is not the best sequence but at least the strobe mode is separate unlike most of cheap chinese lights that you have to cycle thru the strobe/SOS mode. I would rather see low/mid/high/low... and press and hold for ON/OFF with memory mode.

Power consumption in high mode is around 13.3W and the current draw on the battery (@ at 8.1V) is...

LOW-0.42A / MID-0.82A / HIGH-1.65A All three brightness modes are evenly progresive and very usable. Illumination output is around 1050 REAL Lummens. Battery light indicates green for full battery (8.4V-6.4V), red for low battery (6.4V- 5.8V) and blinking red for lower than 5.8V. Driver will go out of regulation around 6.3V on the input voltage and the light will start to dim and the brighness will quickly drop. This is acctualy a good feature, while you prolong your runtime and safely end your ride or change the battery and not end up in complete darkness as you would with complete cut off.

While this is high power light and it is so small, there is some drawbacks. It is too small in mass to handle all the heat at high mode, so be careful and not using high mode when not moving and getting that cooling air flow. Although it has an over heat protection that cuts off at around 70°C.

This light uses TIR lenses, though has very smooth beam pattern. No hard brightness transitions and donuts that you get with smooth reflectors. It gives a very wide floody spot beam with gradual fade at the edges. The main brightness is concentrated at +-15° and spreads nicely to +-90° left-to-right. Beam pattern is very nice to your eyes for off road use and less tiring than those high contrast hot spot reflector type beams. It is more suitable for helmet use, but also very good for handlebar use.

Here are two trail beam shots of the Yinding in high mode:

*First bicycle is around 25m away and the second around 40m. *Camera settings: ISO:200, EXP 1.6s, Aperture F4.0, W/B daylight

The battery pack and the charger are very average for budget chinese bike lamp set. I measured battery capacity at around 3500mAh which is not that bad at all, and giving a good two hours run in high mode before it starts to dim. The battery pack itself is not waterproof.

OVERALL:

This is the best budget bike light you can get at the moment. For less than $50 you get a light head unit that can compare to other branded lights that go for more than $150, beside that you get an average battery pack and charger that are good enough for average consumer. This is one of the first budget chinese lamps that are plug&play and you don`t need to overhaull it before first use. It has the nicest beam pattern I have ever seen on chinese light and is almost perfect for helmet off-road use. The fact that this light is so light, I can`t imagine better helmet mounted light.

Pros:

price build quality nice smooth wide floody spot beam pattern lightweight small perfect for helmet mount off-road sigletrail use good mount good design / thermal transfer from LEDs to outer case

Cons:

Average battery cheap mounting o-rings no memory mode