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IQ reflector changes: Influence on beam shape and artefacts

B&M's IQ reflector versions: Influence on beam shape and artefacts

Note: Pictures are taken from the links below, I will add my pictures.

B&M's IQ reflector which is used in the B&M IQ Fly, IQ Cyo, Ixon IQ (battery powered headlamp), Ixon IQ speed (battery powered headlamp) and Schmidt Edelux, exists in at least 2 versions, about which there's a fair amount of information on the IBC forum (mtb-news.de):

The following thread discusses the reflector change from page 14 starting with the post by 'Piktogramm' on 15 Jan. 2009: http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/showthread.php?t=300140&page=14.

But look here: http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/showthread.php?p=5410373#post5410373, the posting by 'mwulf' from 20 Dec. 2008 already shows a 5 section reflector with matte sides.

So the versions I know of are these:

  1. The one used up to ca. December 2008, as used in the Edelux that I have. You can identify it by looking at the sections in the reflector: 4 in the middle, and 2 sides. Those 2 sides are shiny as the rest of the reflector.

    Picture is from an Ixon IQ speed headlamp
  2. The one from ca. end of 2008 to now (late 2010). This has 5 sections in the middle, and 2 sides. Those 2 sides are matte which removes the swirly pattern near the front wheel. From reports in German forums it seems as if this has been used in the Edelux only from end of 2009 onwards.

    Picture is from an Ixon IQ speed headlamp

Pictures showing the different beam patterns side-by-side:


These pictures were taken with an Ixon IQ speed headlamp

You can see in these pictures that the newer reflector gives more light close to the front wheel, but there is a noticeable hotspot with various artefacts in the centre, so for me the Edelux is not as good any more (that same hotspot annoyed me a lot and was very distracting in the Cyo RT).

As the 5 blade version of the IQ reflector was already used in December 2008, this may mean (if B&M used the newer reflector in the Cyo-R at that time too) that a Cyo-R (Nahfeld) may have been a good lamp for just a few months after which it presumably has the same beam shape the Cyo-RT has now.

Note: I wrote the following on the main page before I did my recent test of the Cyo RT:

Busch en Müller IQ Cyo: Available since early October 2008. This is an improvement on the IQ Fly. Especially the version with 'Nahfeld-Ausleuchtung' looks perfect for those who don't want to cycle very fast in the dark, and don't want to spend more money on an Edelux or E3. See the website of the manufacturer. I don't like the fact that B&M makes 4 different versions of both the standard and Nahfeld version (update Aug. 2010: Now 5, with the daylight running-light versions, so 10 Cyo versions in total), and I don't particularly like the style (plastic housing + aluminium cooler for the LED sticking out). Both lamps give a little less light than an Edelux. I'm probably not going to test these lamps as what they can do is pretty obvious: Both lamps give almost as much light as the Edelux, the Cyo sport has the same beam pattern but slightly less bright, the Cyo-Nahfeld has a beam pattern with close-field light so there's no dark spot in front of the wheel, resulting in half the brightness of the beam further away. Update Aug. 2010: After seeing the Philips (battery powered) lamp and how much brighter it appears despite a not so large increase in (claimed) light output, I'm considering testing the Cyo Nahfeld too see how much darker it is than an Edelux...

The above text did change a bit over the 2 years it was on my main bicycle lighting web page (until August 2010), but in particular the comment that the Cyo-R would be great for people who don't like to ride as fast as I do at night, was made in Autumn 2008. This was perhaps correct before ca. December 2008, with the original IQ reflector, but I'm not sure how good/bad the near-field beam really was then, perhaps it was also rubbish? From my test it is clear that pictures can be very misleading, e.g. the Cyo beamshot B&M's website, more so than I thought originally.

That pictures do not tell the whole story is also the reason why in my first post on this subject in the forum of 'Fiets' (20 Sept. 2007, which was really a concept for my bicycle lighting pages which came a year later) I stated that the opinion of cyclists are necessary to give readers an impression of how good or bad a lamp is. So it's hard to say how good/bad a Cyo-R was before the reflector change, but it hardly matters any more (because even if those old Cyo-Rs were good, you can't buy them any more...).

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