Electronics, Lighting, & Gadgets - Alternative to Dinotte Tail Light

I just wanted to tell everyone that I emailed Geoman and he informed me that he is working with Magicshine to develop a red led tail light which would be an alternative to the Dinotte.

I love my Magicshine front light. The quality was way more than what I expected for a sub $100 light. I'm looking forward to the tail light.

Yee haw. I've been kind of thinking about picking up a Nova SD24 in red (360 lumens, $75, just needs 10 to 16 volts) to supplement my 140L. Maybe I'll hold off and see what Geoman comes up with.

agreed. If Geoman is listening, a smaller battery is preferred since I don't need a 4-cell pack on my seatpost. But a Dual Luxeon Red putting out 300 lumens backwards would be just peachy.

agreed. If Geoman is listening, a smaller battery is preferred since I don't need a 4-cell pack on my seatpost. But a Dual Luxeon Red putting out 300 lumens backwards would be just peachy.

CR 123 would be optimal as it is commonly available in both LION rechargeable and disposable.

Maybe a high powered version of Nite-Ize Spoke-Lit would be cool as well. CR123

Fenix flashlight with diffuser?

This is a HUGE untapped market! Come up with something that is daylight visible but more inexpensive than a Dinotte, and you're guaranteed to sell hundreds, if not thousands in a few months. With the way the lumens are being pumped out by Fenix, Magicshine, etc., it seems like a eminently doable proposition for the enterpreneur.

A self contained light (1 or 2 18650 with no external battery pack) would be excellent. In my opinion the external battery pack is the major downfall of the Dinotte light.

If Geoman is open for input.... IMHO a clean mount for a flashlight style taillight is problematic. I am also not into the CR123 idea.... and would prefer to have the longer run-time of the 18650. I think a single or dual 18650 battery would be ideal. I would NOT want a 4 cell battery since for a rear, there should be no need and I don't want to have to deal with the bulk.

Since there is no such thing as a red P7, I think a Dual Luxeon III Red LED with a single or dual 18650 should provide 150-300 lumens of clean red light.

My ideal light would be a stacked tail-light that had 2 red Luxeon III LEDs. One with a wide beam pointed backwards, and the second using this optic which looks to shoot the light out sideways.

http://litemania.com/front/php/product.php?product_no=25&main_cate_no=44&display_group=1

A lighthead shaped like the Dinotte 400L with these two LED's and the stated optics priced near $100 would be amazing

Fenix flashlight with diffuser?

1) I have one. Not much light on the red wavelengths. You might as well use a SuperFlash.

2) Aim a Fenix at yourself from ~3 meters (think left-turn lane here) and see how you feel about it after 45 seconds. The flash pattern is a tactical strobe intended to disorient the victim, not a blink pattern a la DiNotte. Hopefully GeoMan's variant won't be equipped with tactical strobe :thumb:

Hey MechBgon

2) Aim a Fenix at yourself from ~3 meters (think left-turn lane here) and see how you feel about it after 45 seconds. The flash pattern is a tactical strobe intended to disorient the victim, not a blink pattern a la DiNotte. Hopefully GeoMan's variant won't be equipped with tactical strobe :thumb:[/QUOTE]

IF you think the Fenix was a tactical mode will disorient a person, wait till you seee the MS strobe mode. That's just wrong;)

Yeah, no way would I go with something powered by CR123 cells. Too small, runtime would be too low for something in the desired 150-300 lumen range. I like the idea of only having to charge my taillight every 3 or 4 hours of runtime at minimum.

I'd also buy a 18650 based light if it was reasonably small and cost less than the Magicshine headlight. Being able to buy additional mounts so I could swap it between bikes would be cool.

This is what I have. Nine dollar, ninty cents. Brighter than heck. Robust, too. I've had mine hose clamped to the rack on my MTB. Contrary to one of the reviews, mine has held up well and it stays bright. WAY brighter than any blinky. Only downside I can see is it may not be visible from the side without a reflector of somekind. That's not a problem for me cause I don't ride in traffic.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.20333

I'd also buy a 18650 based light if it was reasonably small and cost less than the Magicshine headlight. Being able to buy additional mounts so I could swap it between bikes would be cool.

+1 on the extra mounts.

TOnly downside I can see is it may not be visible from the side without a reflector of somekind. That's not a problem for me cause I don't ride in traffic.

If you don't ride in traffic, why do you need a rear light?

Competition is good but I love my Dinotte 140 tail light. The main way it could be improved would be providing some better options for mounting. Dinotte seems to think that a seatpost is the only place to mount a tail-light, even though most commuters have seatbags and other gear that block their seatpost. I finally rigged up a way to mount a Dinotte on my bike but it took some creative tinkering.

My only problem with the Dinotte is, for a taillight, I really don't like the separate battery pack. It just makes mounting a pain, and taillights don't need the kind of power that a headlight does, so an internal pack should be possible even with the Dinotte light level. A pair of 18650 LiIon cells are bigger than a pair of AAs but smaller than four AAs, and pack more watts than 4 AAs. They could be semi-permanently mounted (maybe the thing could screw shut) since the thing would just need to be recharged.

Something the shape of a PBSF, but with a 3 watt red LED up top and a pair of 18650s on the bottom, with something like the Dinotte's high flash over low constant - Perhaps running 1 watt constant, 3 watts on a 10% duty cycle, so 1.2 watts average. Two 18650s gives you 18 watt hours, so you'd have a 15 hour runtime on such a flash mode, 60 hours on a 10% duty cycle strobe over off, or 6 hours on high steady.

Personally I'd go for a bigger LED or possibly two 3 watt red LEDs and take the runtime hit.

I have a bag mount with the Dinotte.
PVC pipe and two Tye wraps.
Cell phone holder from the dollar store, for the battery pack.
I ride in the day time, I am able to stand up and with a helmet mirror see if it is working.
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh187/10wheels/Lights/Dmount001.jpg

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh187/10wheels/Lights/Dmount002bf.jpg

If you don't ride in traffic, why do you need a rear light?

I ride dark, rural roads. Pick-em-up trucks, mostly, come up behind me. They can see me from way far back. IF i was riding where there were a lot of intersections I might rig up some kind of reflector for the light to shine on. But I don't, so I haven't.
Or I would think of some other way for people to see me from the side.
Come to think of it, from the side I guess the flashlight wouldn't be all that much worse than a Dinotte.

I ride dark, rural roads. Pick-em-up trucks, mostly, come up behind me. They can see me from way far back. IF i was riding where there were a lot of intersections I might rig up some kind of reflector for the light to shine on. But I don't, so I haven't.
Or I would think of some other way for people to see me from the side.
Come to think of it, from the side I guess the flashlight wouldn't be all that much worse than a Dinotte.

OK. Pretty much my situation too; almost all rural, cars approaching rapidly from behind, never from the side.

Yeah, Dinotte has very little visibility to the side. One of the reasons I'm thinking about making something else myself.

OK. Pretty much my situation too; almost all rural, cars approaching rapidly from behind, never from the side.

Yeah, Dinotte has very little visibility to the side. One of the reasons I'm thinking about making something else myself.

Why go to the trouble? I've done that in the past. $9.90 from DX.

I ride dark, rural roads. Pick-em-up trucks, mostly, come up behind me. They can see me from way far back. IF i was riding where there were a lot of intersections I might rig up some kind of reflector for the light to shine on. But I don't, so I haven't.
Or I would think of some other way for people to see me from the side.
Come to think of it, from the side I guess the flashlight wouldn't be all that much worse than a Dinotte.

A straight flashlight with a crown (no attached diffuser like is available for the fenix) really blocks off almost any angle but right behind you. The dinotte does have a pretty good visible angle and you can even see the lens which is in front of the houseing from more then a 90 degree angle but it certainly isn't bright.

I'll try to take some pics of my setup as I have a dinotte and two of those 18650 red flashlights from Dealextreme mentioned a few months ago with the drop in that makes them low/mid/high/siezure strobe. I have one that has no mods that is for people coming up from a distance and one I put an old eliptical lens for a cree on backwards stuck to the glass. It is very noticeable from the side much more so then any other light i've had or seen.

Get some tires with reflective sidewalls if you want more visibility from the sides. My Conti GP 4000s with reflective sidewalls and they light up amazingly well, even when you just shine a flashlight on them.

Why go to the trouble? I've done that in the past. $9.90 from DX.

Flashlight blink modes are not nearly as good as Dinotte's.

However, TWO of those flashlights, with diffusers, might be a really good option. One on steady, one flashing. Just flashing = fail, IMO.

I'm thinking that gluing a ping-pong ball over the end of them might be a really good diffuser. Maybe too good though.

Get some tires with reflective sidewalls if you want more visibility from the sides. My Conti GP 4000s with reflective sidewalls and they light up amazingly well, even when you just shine a flashlight on them.

I've found that while reflective sidewalls work really well, they do so only when clean. Any tires on my bike get very dirty, very fast, as I ride 8 miles a day on gravel roads. I have to scrub my tires with a brush and soapy water to make the reflective sidewall visible again, and that only lasts for a few days when it's dry, a few minutes when it's muddy.

I'm about to either remount my spoke reflectors or cut some strips of reflective material and stick it on my spokes.

Get some tires with reflective sidewalls if you want more visibility from the sides. My Conti GP 4000s with reflective sidewalls and they light up amazingly well, even when you just shine a flashlight on them.

Yep.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh187/10wheels/Refltires.jpg

I am a big fan of dinotte. Although expensive, I think that their lights give great value given the quality and performance. One thing that I wish they would work on is a line of generator powered lights.

Why go to the trouble? I've done that in the past. $9.90 from DX.

Wait, I never really looked at that flashlight carefully before, until just now I was putting together a DX order and thought I'd pick one up to play with.

One mode, no flash, 1 hour runtime? Yuck. useless. 1 hour runtime = fail; not only would I have to charge every day, in the winter I'd have to stop halfway and change batteries, because no way would you get an hour runtime at 0*F or colder.

Deleted from cart.

Unfortunately, the DX infos are often wrong. The runtime for my Ultrafire red light is 3 to 4 hours instead of the advertised 1 hour.
There is also a drop-in module with blink mode for something like $7.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?p=9135125&highlight=Ultrafire+WF-501B#post9135125
blinking drop-in:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=564679&highlight=Ultrafire+WF-501B



Wait, I never really looked at that flashlight carefully before, until just now I was putting together a DX order and thought I'd pick one up to play with.

One mode, no flash, 1 hour runtime? Yuck. useless. 1 hour runtime = fail; not only would I have to charge every day, in the winter I'd have to stop halfway and change batteries, because no way would you get an hour runtime at 0*F or colder.

Deleted from cart.

I never timed it but it seems like I ride for several hours between charges. I know I've gone for well over an hour and still got comments on the brightness from the neighbors.

Unfortunately, the DX infos are often wrong. The runtime for my Ultrafire red light is 3 to 4 hours instead of the advertised 1 hour.
There is also a drop-in module with blink mode for something like $7.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?p=9135125&highlight=Ultrafire+WF-501B#post9135125
blinking drop-in:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=564679&highlight=Ultrafire+WF-501B

8-10 hz strobe seems pretty bad. Should be more like 2-3 for a taillight. The Dinotte gets away with about 5 because it pauses on steady-low for a second every 5 pulses.

i made myself a diffuser for the dx red flashlight from a sephora sample container.