Originally Posted by
mike
In today's world of good LED lights with long run-time and even better rechargeable batteries, LED battery lights really trump dyno lights. I do like dyno lights because they are always there - ready to go whether you forgot and left your light on and burned out the batteries, or you are hopping on the bike after letting it sit for months or years. The dyno is always ready. There are shortcomings of dyno lights of course, such as difficult maintenance, unit expense, no lights when stopped, etc.
However, if you are a regular commuter, you will be dialed in to your lights/battery needs, maintenance, and replacement timing.
I completely and totally disagree with this idea, as it's the complete and total opposite - today's LED lights are what make dynamo's useful.
LED lighting has moved into both battery and dynamo powered light. But before LED lighting, dynamo lights were pathetic. The standard halogen dynamo lights were only "so other people can see me" kind of lights, like today's $20 light from the bike shop, here's a pic -
(from
http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/headlights.asp ) -
The higher end lights put out this incredible narrow window of light so the road up ahead was lit up, but nothing off to the sides whatsoever -
In those days, if you wanted any sort of decent amount of light a battery pack was the only way to go, unless you were willing to ride in a little tunnel of light. People would rig up 2 of those halogen Schmidt e6's to try to get a wider beam. But a dynamo light was difficult to get to put out a decent amount of light for night riding.
The idea that LED lighting somehow only helped battery lights is...silly. Dynamo lighting was the biggest beneficiary, and dynamo lights have a limited amount of power from the wheel. Now with the same power LED dynamo lights could put out like 3 times as much light.
Here's a Lumotec Cyo (there's actually a small amount of light put off to the sides that you can't see in the pic, I know because I own one) -
If you prefer a less focussed beam, here's a Supernova e3 -
Here's an e3 triple -
LED lights have made dynamo lights
more useful vs battery lights, not less useful. The advent of LED lighting has made it far more possible to use only a dynamo light for commuting (depending on your conditions and lighting needs) than it was before LED lighting. You were more likely to "need" a battery light before than you are now.
Originally Posted by
mike
If you do use a dyno, it is STILL a good idea to have some kind of battery light in addition so that you have some light when you stop. With an additional battery light, you can also have two focus zones on the road.
Almost all modern dynamo lights have a "standlight" that keeps the light producing about half power of the normal light when you come to a stop for something like up to 5 minutes, so your lights don't turn off when you stop.
The only thing this wouldn't work for is that it would be difficult to use to change a tire or work a chain back onto the bike as dynamo lights are usually physically attached to the bike and pointing straight ahead.