Bicycle Mechanics - Do you know of a good replacement battery for a Vistalite Nightstick?

Hi,
the lite is ok, but the run time at 15 watts is really short.
The plug looks pretty standard; so I was wondering if anyone had
found some other company's battery that would fit? Right now I am running dual
5 watt lamps. But I could replace with 10 or 15 watt bulbs with a larger battery.
Thanks.

As far as I know there is nothing to actually replace the Nightstick battery. You are right, the plug is pretty standard, but good luck finding the female version you need. All of the females I have found were for panel mounting as opposed to in-line cord end plugs. However, all is not lost. Here is what I tried, and it works like a charm. The Nightstick bulb is a standard MR11 halogen form factor, but it is 6 volt, which is not easy to find. Replace it with a 12V. Go to Radio Shack and get a female plug. What you need is a 5.5 OD, 2.5 ID coax plug. They are in the drawers of small plugs. Make a pigtail with that plug with female spade disconnects on the other ends of the wires. Get an inexpensive sealed 12V lead acid battery. You could use a 6V, but the 12V systems has many advantages. If you get a 2.3 amp hour battery it will not be much heavier than the 2.2 AH Nightstick battery. The amps will be lower so the system will actually run cooler. You could even use a higher wattage bulb. The downside is that it won't be as slick a system, and the battery won't fit the little Nightstick battery mount. If you check local shops you may find an actual Nightstick still sitting on the shelf. If all else fails see the thread "Total Geekiness..."

You can get replacement battery "packs" from batteryspace.com or you could make yourself one using cell holders from radioshack and whatever size battery you can get to make 15volts.

Why would you need to find another plug, can't you just cut off the one from the dead vistalite battery pack and just use that to wire + and - to a new pack? I did that to my Marwi battery when it died.

I did something similar for my 6v marwi kamikazi lights when my battery pack died. I bought 5 single D-cell holders from RS and bought a bunch of 9500mAH D-cell batteries from Batteryspace, wired them in series to the connector from the dead battery and now I use that for a bit cheaper than buying the $100 battery from Marwi. And I'll get a longer run time than the 6ampHR batterypack that I can get from Marwi so it's definitely a better solution. Since I'm using the same connector, I have two options of recharging, using a smart Cell charger or simply using the wallwart charger that came with the marwi and put it on a timer (it's a 500mA charger)...

Jay

Hi, I read your comments on the Nightstick battery. Looks like you know what you are talking about. I bought the nightstick a while ago, but now I lost the charger. I went to Radio Shack today, but they did not know what voltage the charger should have. Can you please help?

Many thanks in advance if you can get me that information.

Nick

Hi, I read your comments on the Nightstick battery. Looks like you know what you are talking about. I bought the nightstick a while ago, but now I lost the charger. I went to Radio Shack today, but they did not know what voltage the charger should have. Can you please help?

Many thanks in advance if you can get me that information.

Nick

It's typical halogen. It's also not very well made. Let me see if I have anything
left of it. I thought I gave it to Goodwill.

It's still down there. It's 7.2VDC at 600ma

I had terrible luck with it. Don't try to replace a bulb, you'll never get it back together. Send me your address.