Supernova M99 Pure Mini eBike Light - Part 1 - unboxing and test

Less than a year ago, I purchased a Yamaha YPJ MT Pro eBike.  I gave the bike mixed reviews because while it is a great e-mountain-bike with an uncompromising design, sometimes I wish they had made compromises.

Specifically:

1. No kick-stand is really something I can't abide by.  Even if you have a separate road bike, you will probably ride your mountain bike to the mountain (unless you are one of those cheaters who puts it in the back of a truck to haul it there).  You'll likely need to park it somewhere at some point, so they really should at least give you the option of a stand - especially since the tires are too fat to fit in any standard parking rack.

2. The main battery is not removable, which is just silly.  Especially in Japan, where 99% of people are going to store this outside where there is probably no outlet.  

3. While there is built in USB output, there is no built in light.  This leaves you to either use a dinky and fragile USB powered light, or a battery powered light that you will constantly need to charge separately and always take on and off the bike to avoid theft.

It's point number three I want to address today. Even though this particular bike didn't come with a light, Yamaha sells their motor and display systems to other companies who build them into bikes.  Some of those companies want to include lights, and so Yamaha has added provisions for this.  (As have other makers).  

I scoured the web to find the best aftermarket eBike lights and found that the best reviewed (and also probably not coincidentally, most expensive) lights are from two companies:

1. Busch & Muller

2. SuperNova

SuperNova had a nice chart on their page showing which lights were compatible with which motors, so I decided to take that route - even though they were the more expensive of the two options.  

Even within the SuperNova lineup, there were multiple options which were compatible, so I opted for a middle of the road option.  The reason was simply that although the higher end models would "work", I don't think they would actually work at full brightness.  (The maximum wattage draw was higher than the wattage they claim Yamaha PW-X2 can output).  

The ordering process was convoluted.  Links on the English site pointed to pages that didn't exist on the shop page, so I ended up using the German version of the shop pages.  The international address entry was finicky, as was the payment - but the shipment did arrive quickly!

I ordered on Monday night and the order arrived on Friday morning.  

Given the expense of the item, I had to pay import tax of something like $17, which is more than I paid for the total cost of the cheap USB bike light I have been using until now.  

Upon opening the box, I found three items nicely packaged:

1. The light itself

2. The handlebar mount

3. The Bosch motor cable.  Why Bosch?  I have no idea.  When I ordered, it suggested this to me.  I don't know if it will also work on the Yamaha motor, but I decided to order it and see.  

Taking the light out of the cardboard box, there is a nice metal can.

Opening the can reveals the light itself.  It looks like a disco ball.  In this case it is reflecting me and the camera.

Here is another shot from an off-angle to get a more "pure" image.

Note that the higher end models have a ring of LEDs around the outside, switches for the handle bar, and/or separate high beam modes.  If I thought all of this would work on my bike I would have bought one.  Again even lights listed as "compatible" might not actually be fully usable if there is not enough electricity available, so I decided to play it safe.   

This light has a non-removable cable, which seems sufficiently long and durable.  At the end of the cable are bare wires.

I decided that before I install this on my bike, I wanted to test the lamp out.  There are two main reasons for this:

1. To play with it.

2. So I could see if it might work on my Panasonic bike even though it isn't listed as compatible.  

I have the Panasonic bike rigged up to output to USB at the moment, so I decided to attach a USB plug to the lamp.  Technically, this lamp works from 6-12 volts, and standard USB is 5.1 volts, but I don't think running it for a few seconds on 5.1 volts will harm it (in the worst case, it most likely just won't work).  Also, the USB on the Panasonic was originally designed for the standard light, so it is actually 6v.

I found a suitable donor cable:

One would assume that the red and black are the positive and negative power lines, but I have been fooled before.  Worse, the light comes with a warning sticker stating that if you hook up the power backwards you will break it for sure.  

I plugged the USB cable into a battery and hooked it up to my multimeter to check the polarity.

Sure enough, red and black were positive and negative power as they should be.  I suppose every once in a while things have to be done properly.  

The next thing I did was to hook up the light to the cables with jumper cables for a quick test.  To my relief, it lit up just fine!

The beam is extremely bright if you look at it head-on.  This photo was taken after my camera tried to adjust to it.  Even then, it's too bright to photograph.  

One reason I used this particular battery was so I could check the power draw.  7.2 watts sounds about right.  (I believe it was listed on the spec sheet as 9 watts at 6a  volts).  

I also measured it another way with a separate USB specific meter,

Next, to connect the cabled semi-properly so I can do a test with the Panasonic bike without risking shorting things out with a janky setup.  This was the result after a bit of soldering and heat shrink tubing.  

Another quick test showed that things were still working.

Next, to attach the light to the handle bar mount.  This is pretty much like one of those object puzzles, and actually took me a few moments to figure out how to put together.  

Part of the reason for this was to do a fit test.  I'll be honest - they had only two sized, so I just ordered the larger one.  Yamaha's page also shows the handlebar sizes, but I don't know the tolerances.  This clamp has no rubber or anything to allow for the size to be even slightly off, so I was slightly concerned it might not fit properly.  

Before we get to that, let me show some photos of the dark street near my house.  These won't really do justice to the lights, because the camera has automatic exposure adjustment which will compensate for the brightness of the lights - but you can still get somewhat of an idea.  

Photo 1: Completely dark:

Photo 2: Garmin Varia UT 800 Light

Note that this looks like kind of a pin-point of light in actuality.

Photo 3: Knog PWR Mountain Light

It's hard to tell the difference in the photo, but this essentially looks like someone turned on a room light.  It just lights up everything super bright with a pretty wide angle.  (This light is also comically large with a huge battery that it runs down fairly quickly!). 

Photo 4: Supernova M99 Pure Mini

This is very interesting.  It looks like like car headlights.  It doesn't light up anything right in front of you, or very high up.  It is really trying to light up a specific area of the road.  I have to say I would still use the PWR light for night time mountain riding, but this is much better for road riding.

  

Next, let's test out the mounting.  (This won't be perfect since the PWR mount is still present, but it should give us a good idea of the fit and location).  

As you can see it is shifted and angled to the right a bit because of the PWR mount, but I think that if I remove that, then it will fit quite well.  Having said that, I would still prefer an option that mounts to the stem instead.  

The same as seen from "in front":

It does actually look kind of neat.

I did try this on the Panasonic bike.  It draws too much current, so it just flashes on briefly about once per second.  I believe that the built in light on the Panasonic draws only about 5 or 6 watts, and it's not willing to provide any more than that.  A shame.

It's night time now, and I am planning on mounting a different horn as well (and I don't want to have to take the bike apart twice!), so I will stop for now.

Just for kicks, I may test it tomorrow to see if it works with the USB on the Yamaha, but I need to find the OTG adaptor first.  I want to properly hard wire it either way to make it weather resistant, etc.  I will also have to figure out the wire routing, as this bike has a very unusual frame.  

*** Update #1 *** The light works just fine with the YPJ MT Pro's built in USB output via a USB OTG adaptor.

*** Update #2 *** Some photos showing mounting on Yamaha YPJ MT Pro after removing the PWR mount.

Stay tuned for part 2, where we properly install it and connect it directly to the motor.