Commuting - LED lighting, a rapid technology jump.

LED light systems now rival older LED's and standard filament flashlight type bulbs.
The jump in light output is amazing as is the decrease in cost. Lumileds is on the forefront of developing extremely bright LED light assemblies and completers are getting the prices lower. Imagine having the equivalent light output of a standard 5-watt halogen light that takes only requires 25% of the current. You find your 2-hour battery pack now lasts 8 hours for the same amount of brightness.
The resulting jump in light output was due to a simple design change. These new LED's are mounted on a small circuit board about the size of a dime. This allows easy mounting to the required heat sink and allows much more current to flow through the LED resulting in a jump of brightness.
I foresee a new bicycle light system where this LED assembly and it's required heat sink is molded into a front bicycle reflector providing not only the required reflector but lighting for your after dark bicycle adventures as well. This would remove lights that mount to the handlebars and standard reflector mounts may be used keeping development and production costs low. Considering these LED lights last 100,000 hours it would make since to replace the entire LED/reflector assembly should the end user manage to actually use it 100,000 hours before something else destroyed it!http://www.lumileds.com/images/productphotos/starIII

In the past LEDs have not been able to survive vibration from my commute. They last between 250-400miles and once they go on the fritz, they may turn off ...then on intermitantly [drives the cagers crazy] LED is still good, it's the connectors, capacitors and board itself that takes a beatin.

Wonder how these new lights will work out.

One thing I have found from LED headlights is that, compard to other lights, they are poor at providing contrast, unless mounted low. Their brightness and longevity are ok but they give a 'flat' impression of the road.

LED light systems now rival older LED's and standard filament flashlight type bulbs.
The jump in light output is amazing as is the decrease in cost. Lumileds is on the forefront of developing extremely bright LED light assemblies and completers are getting the prices lower. Imagine having the equivalent light output of a standard 5-watt halogen light that takes only requires 25% of the current. You find your 2-hour battery pack now lasts 8 hours for the same amount of brightness.
The resulting jump in light output was due to a simple design change. These new LED's are mounted on a small circuit board about the size of a dime. This allows easy mounting to the required heat sink and allows much more current to flow through the LED resulting in a jump of brightness.
I foresee a new bicycle light system where this LED assembly and it's required heat sink is molded into a front bicycle reflector providing not only the required reflector but lighting for your after dark bicycle adventures as well. This would remove lights that mount to the handlebars and standard reflector mounts may be used keeping development and production costs low. Considering these LED lights last 100,000 hours it would make since to replace the entire LED/reflector assembly should the end user manage to actually use it 100,000 hours before something else destroyed it!http://www.lumileds.com/images/productphotos/starIII

Did you copy that straight from the lumiled website? They are just talking about luxeon LEDs which are already featured in numerous different bike lights from the known manufacturers.

I find that the LED's are good for visibility, but are too blue for seeing things on a dark path/trail. I use a halogen for trails and an LED for streets (where it;s the cars I worry about).

Are the newest 'white' LED's better at producing red rather than blue light??

<Did you copy that straight from the lumiled website? They are just talking about luxeon LEDs which are already featured in numerous different bike lights from the known manufacturers.>

No! A competitor just released the Luxdrive Moon LED as an example.
http://www.leddynamics.com/LuxDrive/datasheets/4020-Io-Moon.pdf
This is an improvement over the Luxeon LED's. No additional lenses or collimators are required and you have a choice of 35 or 70-degree angles of illumination. I just received an evaluation sample a few days ago and just got a chance to test it last night. It's impressive and nothing like the current batch of LED bicycle lights.
LUXEON has just released the K2 Star Module, which is capable of producing 100 Lumens per LED. No sample is available for testing it yet. 40 Lumens is the limit from the very brightest bicycle lights available now. Check Ebay and you will find it's being flooded with warehouse closeouts of current bicycle lighting systems so there not stuck with old out of date stock when the new systems arrive very soon. A good example is the Nite Hawk bike light systems for $18.99 on Ebay.
There are quantum leaps in LED technology taking place right now.

I find that the LED's are good for visibility, but are too blue for seeing things on a dark path/trail. I use a halogen for trails and an LED for streets (where it;s the cars I worry about).

Are the newest 'white' LED's better at producing red rather than blue light??

Very much better. I found the new warm Moon LED to have less of a blue tinge to the light color. It's very close to a pure white. I just noticed Bike nashbar has put all there LED light systems on sale as well as some Halogen systems. A good example is the Nite hawk Phoenix 5 watt Halogen system that normally retails for $139.95 is now $79.95. That alone should tell you there trying to get rid of them before the new stuff hits the market.

I find longevity is a serious issue. My led lights manage to last about a year. After six months there is usually some sort of damage, a crack in the case or the lense; by eight months water has made it inside somehow and the button no longer works the way it is supposed to; at ten months I'm now having to bang the thing on my helmet or the top bar to get it to turn on.

The majority of the problems seem to come from vibration, I don't do much off road at all, but the daily two hours of road/MUP vibration just seem to shake the things apart.

I find the HID lights tend to be much more vibration resistant, I think alot of it is because the battery pack is in a seperate place, and the mounting system is usually (somewhat) more robust.