mcahill844

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.

ItsJustMe

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.

Hirohsima

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.

BearSquirrel

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

dekindy

Fenix flashlight with diffuser?

agarose2000

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.

Cyclist0383

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.

Hirohsima

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.

https://litemania.com/front/php/produ...isplay_group=1

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

mechBgon

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

Not the Slowest

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 [/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

ItsJustMe

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.

ericm979

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.

sknhgy 

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.

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

Cyclist0383

+1 on the extra mounts.

ItsJustMe

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

tarwheel 

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.

ItsJustMe

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.

10 Wheels

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.

sknhgy 

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.

ItsJustMe

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.

sknhgy 

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

evblazer

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.

tarwheel 

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.

ItsJustMe

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.

ItsJustMe

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.