commodorefork

Yes. I'm wondering if there are any tail lights that use incandescent bulbs rather than those dreaded LEDs? The LEDs are too small, too focused. I want something that glows in all directions evenly. Maybe some sort of flashlight with a red filter would do the trick here? Something that uses ordinary AA/AAA batteries and can be dismounted would be ideal. Any ideas?

Thanks. :-)

unterhausen

I have to say that I disagree with your premise. There are lots of led tail lights out there that spread the light around. I often check to make sure my tail light is on just by looking at the ground near my rear wheel, if the lights are on, you can tell from that. Incandescent lights have pretty much disappeared, for very good reasons. Not the least of these was that you could be riding along with a burned out taillight and not know it. I'm sure there were incandescent battery powered taillights, but I have to say I've never seen one. Too much power and not enough light. High powered red leds showed up long before they figured out how to make high power white leds, that killed the incandescent tail light a long time ago.

JohnJ80

I doubt there are even any incandescent light tail light being sold anymore. At any rate, you'd need a ton of battery to get them to the brightness that you can get with LEDs. The power consumption of LEDs is much, much lower than for the same brightness in incandescent.

The diffused beam that you are looking for is a function of the diffuser or the lens that is placed in front of the LED. There are numerous LED lights that do have wide diffuse beams so that they are seen from wide angles. The Serfas Thunderbolt is a good example. The king of all the LED lights with wide diffusion is the Niteflux Red Zone 8. It's so bright and has such a wide diffuse beam that you can actually see it from the front in some perspectives. Search youtube and you'll find numerous videos that illustrate this.

J.

2manybikes

There is no reason to make one. They use too much power and are dim. The modern led lights use lenses and even sideways aiming LEDs to boost visibility from the side.

ItsJustMe

To achieve the same brightness for any length of time you'd need to carry a pretty massive chunk of batteries. What LEDs have you been looking at? Only the extremely cheap junky ones from discount stores have small points of light. Better lights have lenses in them that diffuse the light much better than incandescents would anyway.

Spld cyclist

If you can't find a single LED taillight that has the diffussion pattern you want, why not buy two and aim each slightly off axis? However, I agree with previous responses that suggest this isn't that big of a problem in the first place.

PaulRivers

As other people have said, you just need to look for a light with a more diffused beam. It's pretty much impossible to find a halogen tail light, with good reason, and not that hard to find an led tail light that's not as focussed.

They even make crazy stuff like this (DToplight XS) -


Or this (Toplight Line Permanent) -

cplager

Yes, we all agree that incandescent lighting would be silly here.

So, let's refocus this thread a bit:

What tail lights have a good viewing angle?

For what it's worth, a couple lights on your spokes will really help with visibility from the side.

Cyril 

I think you'll either need a time machine or to find a well established bike shop that has been around for decades that never completely got rid of its old inventory.

unterhausen

I remember the first led watches back in the '70s. It doesn't really take much of an led to make a pretty good tail light, so I'm guessing led tail lights showed up reasonably soon after red leds got cheap. Anyone remember? I really don't remember any incandescent rear lights at all except for dyno lights, leg lights and maybe the big rectangular lights with the proprietary batteries (which nobody remembers but me given that poor description).

ItsJustMe

The Knog Blinder series has a very nearly completely uniform lighting pattern across about 120 degrees, and is visible to 180 degrees. I don't think it's possible for any light to be any more wide and uniform.

Here's a video of a garage door test that includes the Knog, see especially at the end in flash modes.
Bicycle taillight comparison - reflective - YouTube

Here's another video that shows what they look like direct rather than reflected.

Taillight test 2013-04-09 - YouTube

As you can see, the knog is extremely uniform across the entire width, but the straight on tests show that a couple of the others totally swamp it for light output. Even though it drops off a lot, the Serfas TL60 is so bright that at an angle where it's dropped off it's still probably brighter than the Knog with its uniform distribution.

2manybikes

I would have to say that some I own are not uniform out to 180, but are visible past 180. One of them is.

I have a couple of Rabot 1000 lights with a clear housing, they are visible well past 180 degrees. The Planet Bike Superflash is too. But not as bright as behind. Some can be seen almost from the front.

I also have a couple of Cateye 1000 lights that have two led's on each side pointing directly sideways (180)
and are visible past 180 . and full power at exactly 180. The new 1100 replaces it with brighter LEDs.

I had some that had an LED pointing 45 degrees on each side. The old planet bike 7 LED blinkies. Gave them away, they were pretty old, and not modern LED's.

There are older and brand new lights that are visible past 180. Unfortunately some of them need to be tested to be sure. I think the Cygolight Hot shot, and, Hot shot 2 have good side visibility, but I don't have one here right now to look at.

It surprises me that so many tail light owners never test the tail light at night by standing the bike somewhere at night and walking way behind it to see rear and side visibility. I know many forum users like you and I do.

fietsbob

A common Bulb taillight is .6w, and It is more a point than an LED.. the headlight is 2,4w for a TTl =3w the dynamo output. 3W.



Another LED taillight Also B&M 4D 4 LED.. 2 on the edge, 2 behind a lens, on the center.. the 4D 'permanent" is AA battery powered ..on/off switch.

I've had the 4D Senso, now the 4D senso +, senso ..mode 3rd position of their switch, you can leave it on , the sensor lights it in the dark when you start moving,

& it stays on for a few minutes when you stop.

mstraus

If the real problem you are trying to solve is better side visibility vs a very focused LED then get an LED light that has better side visibility. An incandescent tail light is not the right solution to the problem.

It is true that many LED tail lights are very bright in a very narrow focused beam - very visible from right behind but not as much from 45 or 90 degrees. Thankfully some lights are not as focused and still very bright and visible - better then any incandescent would be.

These tail light review actually measures lumens from 0, 45, and 90 degrees:
The Best Bicycle Taillights of 2013 « Stack Exchange Bicycles Blog
Review of the Best Bicycle Tail Lights in 2012 « Stack Exchange Bicycles Blog

As you see some do a very good job a side visibility, like my personal favorite the Light & Motion vis 180.

Many of the most popular and very bright ones, such as ty Hotshot or Radbot, are very focused and not very bright at 90 degrees.